The Harlem Globetrotters

Plot synopsis:
Abe Saperstein (Thomas Gomez), owner/manager of the world-famous "Harlem Globetrotters", an all-Negro professional basketball team, arrives with his team at a small town to play a game. The local college coach approaches Abe and tells him about local player, Billy Townsend (Billy Brown), who is just a sophomore but is an All-American and wants very much to play for the Globetrotters. The local coach asks Abe to turn Billy down if he comes to request a place on the Globetrotters. Billy does come to speak with Abe, and as requested, Abe tells him to stay in school, then to come see him after he graduates.Billy follows the team to their next game and approaches Saperstein again, telling him that he had dropped out of school and wanted to play for the Globetrotters. He convinces Abe that hes serious, and mature enough to know what hes about, so, Abe signs him to play.Billy struggles in practice against the veteran Globetrotter players, but he seems to be accepted well enough by them. Billy proves that hes talented enough, but in a game where the Globetrotters led by just one point, and after the coach directed the team to take the air out of the ball and just pass it around until the clock ran out, Billy went ahead and took a shot with about 15 seconds remaining. He made the shot, but the team and the coach were angry that he took the chance. Billy seemed surprised that they were upset about it, saying, its just a game. He found out it was much more than just another game to the team.Billy becomes a star on the team, but he still has a strong independent streak and often pushes the rules of the coach and the team. He sneaks out of the hotel before a big game and secretly gets married to his girlfriend, Ann Carpenter (Dorothy Dandridge). As Billy tries to hurry back into the hotel, to avoid people seeing him, Billy stumbles into a garbage can that is being carried by two men at the hotel. Already nursing a tender knee, the accident further aggravates the knee.Just before the game, he lies to the coach and tells him his knee is fine. As a result, Abe leaves him in the entire game, figuring his struggles during the game are simply a result of an off night. But, when Billy sets to take what would be the game-winning shot at the buzzer, his knee buckles and he misses the shot badly, and the Globetrotters lose.The game was one of three the Globetrotters played against the professional New York Celtics and it was a very tough loss for the team to suffer. When Abe finds out that Billy misled him, he fires him.Billy decides to go talk with the coach of the Los Angeles team and the coach agrees to sign him on if Billy promises to take it easy and not do anything to aggravate the knee until the next season. Billy then signs a four year contract for about $50,000.About the same time, Billy is approached by the head of the chemistry department at Baltimore State University (a school Billy once referred to as jerkwater). The professor offers Billy a job teaching introductory chemistry until it was time for him to start playing ball again. Billy, who was an honors student in chemistry, accepts the job, even if it was a jerkwater school in his opinion.The third game of the three-game series with the Celtics was coming up. Both teams had won one game each. Billy is scheduled to teach a class the night of the game, but when he learns half the university is going to be at the game, he decides he would like to go too, but he wants to go as a player. He goes to see Abe Saperstein and asks if he can suit up and sit on the bench. Abe says ok, without much discussion, and no argument. However, Billy doesnt simply sit on the bench, he starts.The game is back and forth, but Billy plays well and is in for the entire game. Again, it comes down to the last shot and its Billys shot again. This time the shot goes in, but his knee collapses again. Billy figures that doesn't matter, as everyones thrilled with the win and Billy has time to rest and heal up before the next season, which will be with the Globetrotters and not the L.A. team, as he automatically forfeited that contract by playing with the Globetrotters again.

Tags: flashback

Review:
Great Historic Look at the actual Globetrotters.
For any basketball fan this movie is worth the enjoyment of seeing the original Globetrotters in action.
The movie itself is pretty weak but I guess that Scotty Pippen commercial of a few years back where he is slamming against those old guys doing set shots was not far off from the way it was..
Goose, Marcus, & Dorothy.
This Dorothy pays a visit to the Globetrotters' version of OZ.
I remember seeing Goose Tatum and Marcus Haynes in action:  I don't think too many of today's NBA player could dribble like Marcus could, and I think it was Goose that KICKED the ball (all net!) through the basket from mid-court in their football routine!
This film is a bit on the dated side, but one has to be reminded that the Globetrotters used to play NBA teams from time to time, coming out on top most of the time.
Solid 7, tho its historic value is much greater..
Entertaining But Poorly Made.
The Harlem Globetrotters (1951) ** (out of 4) Fun but poorly made feature about an All-American college player (Billy Brown) who decides to leave school and join the Globetrotters, although their head coach Abe Saperstein (Thomas Gomez) is against the idea.
Soon the new player is starting to rub the other members the wrong way.
THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS was apparently a huge hit when it was first released and I'm going to guess that this was due to how popular the basketball group was and it had zero to do with the quality of the film.
I will admit that the film kept me entertained but there's no question that it was poorly made in just about every aspect.
What we've basically got are a couple actual Globetrotter games that were filmed and then the "story" was added around them.
We basically have a smart kid quitting college to play ball but then he starts to think about what direction he should take going forward.
This includes several scenes with the coach, getting into it with his teammates and trying to please his new wife (Dorothy Dandridge) who is worried about his future.
The entire film has an incredibly cheap look to it as the basketball footage at times looks worse that stock footage.
It also doesn't help that most of the performances are fairly bad.
This includes many of the actual Globetrotters but I don't blame them any since none of them were professional actors.
They're actually what keeps the movie working so well because as a sports fan it was just interesting to see how they were playing the game back then and especially compared to today.
I thought getting to watch the basketball footage was the most interesting thing and I think it's what will keep most people glued to the movie..
The 28 Year Old Dorothy Dandridge.
The struggling 28 year old Dorothy Dandridge continued to pad out her c.v. and pay her bills by acting in this dull film.
In the past, I would have said that she was lucky to be offered a role in films at her age, but now I can see that she suffered for her art..
Sweet Georgia Brown.
(Some Spoilers) Very entertaining movie about the legendary Harlem Globetrotters and their coach Abe Saperstein, Thomas Gomez, and the antics they pulled on the court.
It's those crazy ball spinning and dribbling antics that made their opposition go batty while at the same time preserved the Globetrotters stamina to make the big push to win the game in it's last dying seconds.
We get to see the Globetrotters do their thing on the basketball court in a number of dazzling newsreel footage clips that's by far the most exciting scenes in the entire movie.As for the plot it's a bit schmaltzy with chemistry major Billy Townsend, Billy Brown, leaving collage to peruse his dream of becoming a member of the famed Harlem Globetrotters.
This has Billy's girlfriend Ann Crapenter, Dorothy Dandridge, a bit confused in wondering if he's throwing away a good paying career as a collage chemistry professor for a dream, making it as a Harlem Globtrotter, that may not come true for him.
Detremined to make the team Billy takes advantage of a fellow player in the team getting injured to get into it's starting lineup.
And before you, and Abe and his globetrotters, know it he's the star attraction as well as biggest point scorer on the team.
It's later when Billy without Abe's knowledge marries Ann and on his way back to the hotel injures his knee slamming into a garbage can, by Billy not looking straight ahead, in him trying to make it back before lights out!
Playing hurt Billy does his job against the rival New York, not the later Boston, Celtics but at the very last moment his injured knee gives out just as he was about to make the winning shot!
With both Abe and his teammates feeling that he let them down by not reporting his injury before the game so he could have been replaced Blly is kicked off the team for not being a team player.
Billy ends up getting a teaching job from Professor Turner, Bill Walker, as an assistant chemistry teacher in the all black Baltimore Collage to support himself an Anne.
Meanwhile on the side Billy, in great talent never being overlooked, soon secures a contract from the New York Rams Basketball team only under the condition he lets his injured knee heal before he ever throws a basketball.
***SPOILER**** Things come full crucial for Billy when he reads in the papers that the Globetrotters are to play the New York Celtics in their rubber match, the teams beat each other once, in New York's Madison Square Garden.
Billy then goes, injured knee and all, to see Abe Saperstein and asks him if he, with one of his players in the hospital, can play in the game.
No surprise here with Billy, after a see-saw battle between the Globetrotters and Celtics, flipping the winning basket with less then three seconds left in the game re-injuring his knee in the process.
With his contract as a New York Ram player voided in playing injured for the Globetrotters Billy can now go back to school and get his chemistry degree and thus a full time professor job at Baltimore Collage.
But the biggest gift he got was the winning basketball, signed by all the globetrotters and coach Abe Sapertein, that brought the World Basketball Championship back to Harlem in New York City!
Even though the Harlem Globetrotters never played there and are actually located in Chicago!.
Always specify "Dorothy" when you say "Dandridge!".
Although I'm not by any means a basketball fan, I must admit that the basketball sequences in this film, all engagingly directed by Will Jason, are far more entertaining than anything that transpires in the rest of the movie, directed by Phil Brown.
I will readily admit that the Will Jason scenes hold out a great deal of interest for me, simply because of Dorothy Dandridge's presence.
Her legion of devoted fans - of which I am most definitely one - would heartily agree!
So, admittedly, I am such a Dorothy Dandridge admirer that, in my opinion, she can do no wrong.
In fact, she could recite "The Gettysburg Address" and still retain MY interest – but if you're not one of us Dandridge admirers, beware!
Give this movie a miss.
You won't enjoy it.
No way!
No way at all!Also on the credit side, this movie was produced by no less a person than Buddy Adler, would you believe?
Buddy was soon to make headlines when he received an Academy Award for producing "From Here To Eternity." And then a bit later, Buddy was sitting right in the driver's seat at 20th Century Fox.