Go Man Go (film)

Go, Man, Go! is a 1954 sports film starring Dane Clark, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Patricia Breslin, The Harlem Globetrotters and Slim Gaillard. Clark plays Abe Saperstein, the organizer of the Globetrotters. Poitier's character is Inman Jackson, the team's showboating center. Breslin plays Sylvia Saperstein, the love interest, and Abe's daughter. Gaillard plays himself.

The film tracks the Globetrotters from humble beginnings through a triumph over a major-league basketball team, as they struggle to overcome racial discrimination. Actual Harlem Globetrotter players portray the team in basketball action throughout the picture.^[1] The friendship between Saperstein and Jackson, and their wives, is an important storyline.^[2]

Hollywood blacklist

Screenwriter and producer Alfred Palca was accused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1953 of being a Communist. He refused to cooperate with their investigations. No distributor was willing to release the film with his name credited, so he gave the producing credit to his brother-in-law, Anton M. Leader, and the screenwriting credit to his cousin, Arnold Becker, a pediatrician. He never worked in the film industry again. According to Palca, the F.B.I. saw his casting of Poitier as further evidence of his Communism.^[3]

Reception

Bosley Crowther, writing in 1954 for The New York Times, observed: This is the second little picture in which the Globetrotters have been starred. The encore is not excessive. They still give an entertaining show.^[4]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2006: AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – Nominated^[5]

References

External links

• Go, Man, Go! on IMDb
• Go, Man, Go! at AllMovie