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.[2] The friendship between Saperstein and Jackson, and their wives, is an important storyline.[3]
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 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.[5]
In 1997, a ceremony at the Academy Theatre honored blacklisted Hollywood writers and directors and restored Palca's writing credit for the film.[6]
Reception
Bosley Crowther, reviewing the film 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."[2]
