O Time Maravilhoso

"Go Man Go" is a very low budget film about the early days of the Harlem Globetrotters and their owner/creator, Abe Saperstein. The film stars Dane Clark and Sidney Poitier (before he became famous) but otherwise the actors are mostly small-time actors, unknowns and actual basketball players. The film purports to be the story of the Globetrotters, though how close all this is to the truth, I have no idea.

The game begins with the Globetrotters already in existence and Abe in charge. The film follows them through the lean years, barely getting by (which would also have been true with other basketball teams of the era) and to the time when the team played a legitimate style of basketball and won the world championship.

The story is interesting. What isn't interesting is the extensive use of grainy stock footage. This becomes MUCH worse towards the end, as instead of just briefly showing the big game, it seems to take up a LOT of time with a lot of stock footage. Overall, moderately enjoyable but it left me wishing it was higher budgeted, but considering it's about black athletes and it was made in 1954, it it's actually surprising it was made at all.

A charming time-capsule starring another charismatic but forgotten actor, Dane Clark (not the execrable Dane Cook), alongside a young Sidney Poitier, "Go Man Go!" features a bebop score by Slim Galliard, who was a favorite of Jack Kerouac. I wonder what the connection with "On the Road" is -- I remember the phrase "Go Man Go" as an exhortation Sal Paradise shouted out to improvising jazz musicians.

Slim Galliard makes an appearance, playing a piano with his fingers upside down for a small gathering of Globetrotters. I love Kerouac's description of a Galliard concert: '... we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco nightclub. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big sad eyes who's always saying 'Right-orooni' and 'How 'bout a little bourbon-arooni.' In Frisco great eager crowds of young semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar and bongo drums." "...Then he slowly gets up and takes the mike and says, very slowly, 'Great-orooni ... fine-ovauti ... hello-orooni ... bourbon-orooni ... all-orooni ... how are the boys in the front row making out with their girls-orooni ... orooni ... vauti ... oroonirooni ..." He keeps this up for fifteen minutes, his voice getting softer and softer till you can't hear. His great sad eyes scan the audience." What kills me is "ovauti", it makes sense next to "o-rooni" but it's so weird, where is it coming from? It's perfect though.

That's the 1950's part of this movie, the 1940's part consists of stereotypical interactions between Clark as Abe Saperstein, Bill Stern (as himself) a hard-bitten but honest sportswriter, and the evil Potter-like sports magnate Mr. Willoughby. The Bowery-Boys-style slang they use -- "Hey ya mug! Ya gonna be a chump all your life? Of course you're invited!" -- is the direct precursor of today's crushingly unimaginative board-room Ebonics appropriation: "Quarterly earnings doubled? Girl, go on with your bad self!". It was probably just as hard to listen to back then.

The 1960's part of the movie is best shown in the final scene, Abe Saperstein, arm-in-arm with the Globetrotters, walking triumphantly towards the camera, in a hopeful message of racial healing. Shades of Blackboard Jungle. I can't recall another movie from the 1950's that was this hopeful and unabashed about race. Today's derivative ironic culture cannibalizes sentiment like this.

"Go Man Go" also has something to say about acting. In an early scene real-life Globetrotter "Sweetwater Clifton" speaks some lines about how he likes soda pop (the origin of his nickname). He delivers them woodenly, although with charm. This is the low end of the acting scale.

Raising the bar, Dane Clark as Abe Saperstein, shows real conviction, but he's always hitting something when he acts. "I'm going to get us into big arenas if it's the last thing I do!' (SMACK). It's as if the director fired him up before every scene ("Now this time really mean it!") without thinking what the cumulative effect would be. Clark's "average Joe" always seems to be in a harangue.

The best actor in the movie is Sidney Poitier, in a relatively minor role, who pops up from time-to-time to speak a few impassioned lines. He does so with quiet conviction, and having seen the other actors telegraph and flail, one gets a sense of the star quality of Sidney Poitier.

A couple of minor points about this movie: it is exemplary in showing what I like to call "old-time small basketball court syndrome", action shot in a remarkably cramped gym. Another film that features this is "Angels with Dirty Faces" where the players are dodging trapezes and other non-basketball equipment as they play on a tiny court.

"Go Man Go" made me think of why, although everyone knows Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, no one knows who did it in the NBA. It turns out that Charles Cooper was the first drafted, Nat Clifton was the first signed, and Earl Lloyd the first to play in a game, all in 1950. Even though it's complicated, I would think this deserves a little more recognition. Is it because basketball is not "America's Game"?

What can you say about the Harlem Globetrotters that hasn't already been said? This film is pure basketball history complete with a great story line and some of the best players EVER to play the game! When I viewed this film in the 50's it was my inspiration to play the game. That was nearly fifty years ago and I will NEVER FORGET IT !!!!!

Not too much in production values got put into this independent film released from United Artists about the early days of the Harlem Globetrotters. A lot of basketball footage narrated by legendary announcers Bill Stern and Marty Glickman.

One thing that does come through is protagonist Abe Saperstein's love of sports and basketball in particular. Dane Clark does a great job in portraying the perpetually boosting Saperstein, promoting his team before they became semi-pro legends.

The Harlem Globetrotters are now a legend combining skill and love the game. Hard to believe that a lot of stuffed shirts in the sports establishment were down on these guys.

Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee are the only other names you might know in the cast. Poitier plays Clark's assistant and Dee his wife. Note we don't see Sid out on the court, he knew his limitations.

For basketball fans everywhere.