The Harder They Come Director’s Home Transforming Into Exhibition Space & Marijuana Dispensary
KINGSTON, Jamaica – The house where director Perry Henzell filmed and edited scenes of his landmark movie, The Harder They Come, will be transformed into a shrine to the 1972 classic.
Henzell’s children, Justine and Jason, told Billboard Magazine that their former family home at 10A West Kings House Road in Kingston, the Jamaica capital, will have photos and artefacts from the movie, areas dedicated to Jamaican film and music, as well as a bar and restaurant.
The Henzells said a medical marijuana dispensary will also be operated at the location.
They announced plans for the renovation of ‘10A’ on March 7, which would have been their father’s 82nd birthday. He died in November, 2006 from cancer.
According to Jason Henzell, the exhibition area, bar/restaurant and marijuana dispensary are scheduled to open in June. The more extensive boutique hotel, a Bohemian-type setting for musicians and art lovers, is earmarked to debut in 2019.
The dispensary may be the venue’s most interesting facet. It will offer various Cannabis extracts including oils, edibles and ganja strains including one called The Harder They Come. It comes three years after the Jamaican government took its first steps to decriminalize marijuana, or ganja as it is known in Jamaica.
Jason Henzell said his father, a liberal, was a longstanding advocate for legalization of the plant which is used by many in Jamaica’s Rastafarian community as a religious sacrament.
“My father always respected the Rastafarian community and he thought that ganja should be legal so everything feels right about turning his home into a dispensary and bringing some of the Jakes Hotel experience to Kingston,” he explained.
Jason Henzell is owner of Jakes, a quaint seaside attraction in rural St. Elizabeth parish. It is one of Jamaica’s most popular tourist spots.
Perry Henzell was an advertising executive at the time he began writing the screenplay to The Harder They Come in the late 1960s. He completed it with Trevor Rhone by 1971.
Based on the exploits of Ivanhoe “Rhyghin” Martin, a gunman who roamed West Kingston during the late 1940s, The Harder They Come was released in Jamaica in 1972 and the United States in April, 1973.
It earned Henzell and star Jimmy Cliff lasting international acclaim.