Overview
- Josh Safdie has reiterated that Marty Supreme is not a biopic, with the film instead drawing inspiration from Marty Reisman’s 1974 autobiography The Money Player.
- Coverage outlines Reisman’s bona fides, including more than 20 major titles in the 1940s and 1950s and a three-year Harlem Globetrotters exhibition tour with teammate Doug Cartland.
- Reports emphasize Reisman’s hustling and showmanship in New York table tennis parlors, along with memoir-documented side income from smuggling and selling ballpoint pens abroad.
- Journalists separate fabrications from verified anecdotes, noting the film’s sea-lion match is invented while Reisman did once face a chimpanzee, as recounted in Sports Illustrated.
- The film’s Holocaust-adjacent beehive vignette is attributed to Hungarian player Alojzy Ehrlich, as Safdie has said, with the movie still in theaters after earning three Golden Globe nominations and outperforming box-office expectations.