The Harder They Come
On October 9, 1948, Jamaica police shot and killed Ivanhoe Martin on Lime Cay in Jamaica. “Rhygin,” as he was more popularly known, was a gangster and a folk hero and, as many know, the inspiration for Perry Henzell’s The Harder They Come, a Jamaican film starring Jimmy Cliff as Ivan Martin. Although he was buried in a Pauper’s lot in May Pen Cemetery in Kingston shortly after he was killed, Rhygin’s memory has been kept alive for decades, largely through Henzell’s work. What many don’t know, however, is that the iconic two-gun image of Cliff-as-Ivan (as seen below) was not only based on photos actually taken of Rhygin when he was alive, but that Rhygin’s story was first appropriated for dramatic purpose in early 1948 in a Jamaican stage production called Rhygin’s Ghost by comedians Bim and Bam. Then, in 1966, Rhygin was the basis for a well-known poem Louise Bennett called “Dead Man”:
Wen smaddy dead dem dead fe true!
Koo yah, koo police man!
Tan up over Rhygin an dah-
Finga-print up him dead han!
*****
Koo dem fus pictures him pose fah.
Gun dem ready, blazin lead!
Koo de las picture him pose fah
Eena dead house, lidung dead!
But ah wanda wat would happen
To de picture-man Miss Sue?
Ef wen him dah-teck de picture
Rhygin duppy did sey “boo”!
(excerpted from Jamaica Labrish, 1966)
Prince Buster even had a song about him (click for YouTube link).
Below are some images to tie this together. From top left, pictures 1 & 2 are of Rhygin in two-gun style; picture 3 (top, left) shows Rhygin dead on the beach and (right side) a police man “tan up over [him] and da finga-print up him dead han”; picture 4 is the image Bim and Bam used to advertise their production of Rhygin’s Ghost (Bim and Bam were friends of Bennett’s by the way–just FYI); and, pictures 5 & 6 are the images most will be familiar with (the first from a promo for the movie, the second appropriated by US-based reggae label Version City for a t-shirt). Many of the pictures are kind of lousy–I don’t have easy access to the actual newspapers at the moment, but these should be good enough to give y’all a sense of the history at play here.
Rhygin’s legacy lives on today, in a bit of global, historical consistency (beyond the movie’s continued marketing), as musical theater:
Anyone seen it? Looks like it might be pretty good…
There are 2 Comments to "The Harder They Come"
This is a fascinating piece, Dan! Being from St. Louis, this story reminds me of our story of Stagger Lee, which happened just down the street from me. Of course, I think Rhygin has more of the makings of a folk hero than Lee, who merely killed a man over a hat
Thanks, JJ!
I’ve been following up on this sort of informally. Larry McDonald, who was young enough to remember when this was going on, told me that he remembered Rhygin’s drink of choice was Porto Pruno wine and that when Rhygin was in hiding, anyone who went into a bar as a stranger and ordered it was considered a suspect.
Also, UWI professor Clinton Hutton told me that the middle photo on the top row were head shots Rhygin sent into the Gleaner himself!