Video: The Harlem Globe Trotters in Nancy in 1951

Everyone knows the Harlem Globe Trotters, these basketball players-showmen who enchant the crowds with their jokes and their incredible technique. During their tour of France in 1951, they passed through Nancy, where Paul Bréard and Marcel Roung filmed them. Exceptional period documents!

If they are now only entertainers, the Harlem Globe Trotters were once the best club team in world basketball. And even counted in their ranks a certain Wilt Chamberlain, the best scorer in the history of the NBA.

Created in 1927, the team of these fantastic showmen but also very strong basketball players (having the only “inconvenience” of being black at a time when racial segregation was at its strongest in the United States) made a European tour in 1951 passing through France, to Paris, Lille and Reims. But also in Nancy, where Paul Bréard and Marcel Roung filmed them.

Quite extraordinary period documents, which show the burlesque talent of these players, but also their qualities as basketball players. As well as the context of the time: an open-air “parquet” and a threatening sky, baskets fixed on scaffolding of tubes with an apparent section and very close to the sidelines, free throws taken with a spoon…

To be enjoyed without moderation thanks to TheRambisClub.

These two videos can be enjoyed by clicking on these two links from the Image’Est website:

https://www.image-est.fr/fiche-documentaire-harlem-globe-trotters-a-nancy-les-1284-955-1-0.html

https://www.image-est.fr/fiche-documentaire-harlem-globetrotters-a-nancy-2-les-1284-1164-1-0.html?ref=3554bde7d60d59b6d868c1bb26a31bb6&s_1284=&st_1284=

Photo: screenshot, film by Paul Bréard