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<H1>From the Underworld of Jamaica to the London Stage</H1><DIV class=byline><SPAN class=timeStamp>Wednesday, Feb. 07, 2007</SPAN> By <SPAN>MICHAEL BRUNTON</SPAN> </DIV><DIV id=articleMain><DIV class=tout1><DIV class=thumbnail>
</DIV><DIV id=copy><DIV class=enlarge>Enlarge Photo</DIV><DIV class=caption>Roland Bell in The Harder They Come. </DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV><DIV id=articleCopy><DIV id=articleTools><FIELDSET><LEGEND>Article Tools</LEGEND><DIV class=print>Print</DIV><DIV class=email>Email</DIV><DIV class=reprints>Reprints</DIV><SCRIPT language=JavaScript1.1 type=text/javascript> adSetTarget('_blank'); htmlAdWH('93224389', '88', '31'); adSetType(''); </SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://ar.atwola.com/html/93224389/587873433/aol?SNM=HIBVDF&width=88&height=31&targ et=_blank&tile=3&TZ=300&CT=J&hw=do cw"></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://twx.doubleclick.net/adj/TW.Time/RE07_Sitewide_ArticleTools;MN=93224389;wm=o;rm=1;! c=d-fls;!c=d-jav;!c=d-dxp;!c=d-pxp;sz=88x31;tile=3;dcove=d;ord=587873433?"></SCRIPT></FIELDSET> </DIV>
It was a tough ticket the night the film The Harder They Come premiered at the Carib Theater in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1972. A crowd of some 10,000 turned up and a near-riot ensued. Like all those who got in, the island's Prime Minister and his wife were jammed two or more to a seat, while instead of a red carpet entrance, director Perry Henzell's wife, Sally, had to be bodily lifted in over the heads of the crowd. Just 6 at the time, Henzell's daughter Justine wasn't allowed to attend, even though some of her earliest memories are of being on set while her father shot the film that was to become a milestone of Jamaican culture and one of cinema's most unlikely survival stories. Thirty-five years on, Justine Henzell, in London this week for the opening night of a musical version of The Harder They Come at the Theatre Royal, remembers what the fuss was all about. "Jamaicans had never seen themselves on the big screen before," she says. "In those days we hardly ever saw ourselves on TV or commercials, let alone in a feature film."
Beyond Jamaica, audiences were less excitable when the film opened. What, after all, were they to make of a radical slice of experimental cinema verite shot by an unknown director in Super 16 mm, about a Jamaican boy who leaves the idyllic poverty of the countryside for the squalid poverty of Kingston to follow his dream of becoming a recording star, only to die in a hail of bullets on the beach? Although Henzell's film was a sharp critique on the closed, cutthroat circle of corruption between the island's music industry, police, and drug dealers, what eventually made the rest of the world take note was the film's blistering soundtrack, which was a breakthrough moment for reggae music. As well as the songs like "Many Rivers To Cross" and "You Can Get It If You Really Want" that were written and sung by young singer Jimmy Cliff, (who also played the lead
</DIV><DIV id=copy><DIV class=enlarge>Enlarge Photo</DIV><DIV class=caption>Roland Bell in The Harder They Come. </DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV><DIV id=articleCopy><DIV id=articleTools><FIELDSET><LEGEND>Article Tools</LEGEND><DIV class=print>Print</DIV><DIV class=email>Email</DIV><DIV class=reprints>Reprints</DIV><SCRIPT language=JavaScript1.1 type=text/javascript> adSetTarget('_blank'); htmlAdWH('93224389', '88', '31'); adSetType(''); </SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://ar.atwola.com/html/93224389/587873433/aol?SNM=HIBVDF&width=88&height=31&targ et=_blank&tile=3&TZ=300&CT=J&hw=do cw"></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://twx.doubleclick.net/adj/TW.Time/RE07_Sitewide_ArticleTools;MN=93224389;wm=o;rm=1;! c=d-fls;!c=d-jav;!c=d-dxp;!c=d-pxp;sz=88x31;tile=3;dcove=d;ord=587873433?"></SCRIPT></FIELDSET> </DIV>It was a tough ticket the night the film The Harder They Come premiered at the Carib Theater in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1972. A crowd of some 10,000 turned up and a near-riot ensued. Like all those who got in, the island's Prime Minister and his wife were jammed two or more to a seat, while instead of a red carpet entrance, director Perry Henzell's wife, Sally, had to be bodily lifted in over the heads of the crowd. Just 6 at the time, Henzell's daughter Justine wasn't allowed to attend, even though some of her earliest memories are of being on set while her father shot the film that was to become a milestone of Jamaican culture and one of cinema's most unlikely survival stories. Thirty-five years on, Justine Henzell, in London this week for the opening night of a musical version of The Harder They Come at the Theatre Royal, remembers what the fuss was all about. "Jamaicans had never seen themselves on the big screen before," she says. "In those days we hardly ever saw ourselves on TV or commercials, let alone in a feature film."
Beyond Jamaica, audiences were less excitable when the film opened. What, after all, were they to make of a radical slice of experimental cinema verite shot by an unknown director in Super 16 mm, about a Jamaican boy who leaves the idyllic poverty of the countryside for the squalid poverty of Kingston to follow his dream of becoming a recording star, only to die in a hail of bullets on the beach? Although Henzell's film was a sharp critique on the closed, cutthroat circle of corruption between the island's music industry, police, and drug dealers, what eventually made the rest of the world take note was the film's blistering soundtrack, which was a breakthrough moment for reggae music. As well as the songs like "Many Rivers To Cross" and "You Can Get It If You Really Want" that were written and sung by young singer Jimmy Cliff, (who also played the lead