(Slight Spoilers) True story of a sports team that has become, in over 118 countries, a legend in their own time Abe Saperstein's, Dane Clark, amazing barnstorming powerhouse basketball team the "Harlem Globetrotters".
Since Abe Saperstein, who passed away in 1966, founded and organized the team the Globetrotters have run up an incredible record of over 22,000 victories against only 345 defeats, an over 98% winning percentage, in some 80 years since they came into existence back in 1928/29. At one point the Globetrotters had a 8,829 winning streak, which stretched almost 25 years, that was eventually snapped on September 12, 1995 in Vienna Austria by the Kareem Abdul Jabbar All-Stars.
The movie goes into the early days of the spectacular basketball team which was anything but spectacular. Going from one small town to another the Globetrotters played semi-pro and third rate basketball teams which they had no trouble at all beating. Considered a bunch of clowns by the sport writers and both collage and professional basketball team owners Abe had to do his best to convince the sports world that his team was in fact the powerhouse that its record, sometimes going through an entire season without a single loss, showed that it was.
The film "Go Man Go" was fortunate to have in it besides a young and up and coming 27 year-old Sidney Poitier, plying Globetrotter regular Inman Jackson, as well as three real life Harlem Globtrotters in its cast: Reese "Goose" Tatum "Sweetwater" Clifton and the only surviving member of the trio Marques Hayes. It was Marques Haynes's amazing ball control, in dribbling the basketball for minutes on end, that allowed his fellow teammates to rest. This while at the same time exhausting the opposition players in trying to get the ball away from him.
We also have a little romantic interlude in the film with Abe meeting at a Kenosha Wisconsin beauty contest no less his future wife the former Sylvia Franklin, Patricia Breslin, who came in second best. Still Sylvia was #1 not only with Abe and his parents Pa & Ma Saperstein, Anatol Winogradoff & Celia Brodkin, but the Globetrotters as well. It was a well meaning and determined Sylvia that kept Abe from quiting the team that he founded when those in high positions in professional and collage basketball tried to blackball him and his Globtrotters out of existence.
With the Globetrotters making such a splash on the sports front pages the big cheese of the professional basketball leagues James Willoughby, Bram Nussem, was forced to give the team a shot in the Basketball Playoffs which were in fact thought up by Abe! Going up the ladder as all the opposition folded before their unique brand, clownish but skillful and exciting ball handling and shooting, of basketball the Globetrotters were now in the final game of the playoffs against the highly touted, and expected to win, Chicago Majors.
The last ten or so minutes of the movie "Go Man Go" is pure magic with the bigger then life Harlem Globetrotters behind during the entire game coming back, from a ten point deficit, against the Chicago Majors like in a fictional sports movie. Nail-biting tension and excitement as the come from behind Globetrotters unbelievably pull off an upset to end all upsets in the last dwindling seconds of the game.
P.S Despite their name "Harlem Globetrotters" the Globtrotters didn't play a basketball game in Harlem, in upper Manhattan New York, until 1968! Some 40 years after they were founded and two years after their founder and couch Abe Saperstein passed away!
Since Abe Saperstein, who passed away in 1966, founded and organized the team the Globetrotters have run up an incredible record of over 22,000 victories against only 345 defeats, an over 98% winning percentage, in some 80 years since they came into existence back in 1928/29. At one point the Globetrotters had a 8,829 winning streak, which stretched almost 25 years, that was eventually snapped on September 12, 1995 in Vienna Austria by the Kareem Abdul Jabbar All-Stars.
The movie goes into the early days of the spectacular basketball team which was anything but spectacular. Going from one small town to another the Globetrotters played semi-pro and third rate basketball teams which they had no trouble at all beating. Considered a bunch of clowns by the sport writers and both collage and professional basketball team owners Abe had to do his best to convince the sports world that his team was in fact the powerhouse that its record, sometimes going through an entire season without a single loss, showed that it was.
The film "Go Man Go" was fortunate to have in it besides a young and up and coming 27 year-old Sidney Poitier, plying Globetrotter regular Inman Jackson, as well as three real life Harlem Globtrotters in its cast: Reese "Goose" Tatum "Sweetwater" Clifton and the only surviving member of the trio Marques Hayes. It was Marques Haynes's amazing ball control, in dribbling the basketball for minutes on end, that allowed his fellow teammates to rest. This while at the same time exhausting the opposition players in trying to get the ball away from him.
We also have a little romantic interlude in the film with Abe meeting at a Kenosha Wisconsin beauty contest no less his future wife the former Sylvia Franklin, Patricia Breslin, who came in second best. Still Sylvia was #1 not only with Abe and his parents Pa & Ma Saperstein, Anatol Winogradoff & Celia Brodkin, but the Globetrotters as well. It was a well meaning and determined Sylvia that kept Abe from quiting the team that he founded when those in high positions in professional and collage basketball tried to blackball him and his Globtrotters out of existence.
With the Globetrotters making such a splash on the sports front pages the big cheese of the professional basketball leagues James Willoughby, Bram Nussem, was forced to give the team a shot in the Basketball Playoffs which were in fact thought up by Abe! Going up the ladder as all the opposition folded before their unique brand, clownish but skillful and exciting ball handling and shooting, of basketball the Globetrotters were now in the final game of the playoffs against the highly touted, and expected to win, Chicago Majors.
The last ten or so minutes of the movie "Go Man Go" is pure magic with the bigger then life Harlem Globetrotters behind during the entire game coming back, from a ten point deficit, against the Chicago Majors like in a fictional sports movie. Nail-biting tension and excitement as the come from behind Globetrotters unbelievably pull off an upset to end all upsets in the last dwindling seconds of the game.
P.S Despite their name "Harlem Globetrotters" the Globtrotters didn't play a basketball game in Harlem, in upper Manhattan New York, until 1968! Some 40 years after they were founded and two years after their founder and couch Abe Saperstein passed away!