The movie came surprisingly close to the real Jamaica of 1965–1975, especially when it comes to rapid urbanization, the music industry, and the rise of crime.
The story follows Ivanhoe “Ivan” Martin, a young man from the countryside who heads to Kingston hoping for a better life. But once he arrives, he finds only unemployment and closed doors. With no legal way to support himself, he eventually gets pulled into the world of local gangsters and is forced to take small jobs for them just to survive.
“Back in those days there were few of us African descendants who came through the cracks to get any kind of recognition,” Cliff told The Guardian in 2021. “But when you start to see your face and name on the side of the buses in London that was like: ‘Wow, what’s going on?’”
“Ivanhoe was a real-life character for Jamaicans,” Cliff told Variety in 2022.
“When I was a little boy, I used to hear about him as being a bad man… However, being a hero was the manner in which Perry wanted to make his name — an anti-hero in the way that Hollywood turns its bad guys into heroes.”
Its soundtrack is now considered one of the greatest ever created, boosting reggae’s international rise. Cliff performed four of its 11 tracks, including the rallying title song and the reflective “Sitting in Limbo.”
His soulful cry in “Many Rivers to Cross” came from painful real-life experiences, he told Rolling Stone in 2012: “It was a very frustrating time. I came to England with very big hopes, and I saw my hopes fading.”
A legacy that never faded
Though his peak coincided with The Harder They Come, Cliff continued creating music for decades, recording with icons like the Rolling Stones, Wyclef Jean, Sting and Annie Lennox. His early hits remained influential: Nicaragua’s Sandinistas used “You Can Get it If You Really Want” as a campaign anthem, and Bruce Springsteen boosted Cliff’s U.S. popularity with his live cover of “Trapped” for the We Are the World charity album.
His songs have been covered by artists ranging from John Lennon to Cher to UB40.
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