A Forverts truck has turned up as a prop in a Timothée Chalamet movie

The delivery truck with Hebrew lettering was spotted on a film set on the Lower East Side

A truck with <i>Forverts</i> written on the side in Hebrew lettering in front of the Forward Building on East Broadway.

A truck with Forverts written on the side in Hebrew lettering in front of the Forward Building on East Broadway. Photo by Leah Strock

By Beth Harpaz October 14, 2024

Here’s a movie prop we never expected to see: a truck with Forverts printed in Yiddish on the side, spotted on a set for a movie starring Timothée Chalamet.

Timothée Chalamet. Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

No, not Chalamet’s Bob Dylan film — we wish — but instead, a film called Marty Supreme, apparently inspired by the life story of the late Jewish Ping-Pong champion Marty Reisman.

Reisman started playing table tennis as a kid on the Lower East Side and won 22 major titles in the sport between 1946 and 2002, including two U.S. Opens and a British Open. He also won the U.S. National Hardbat Championship in 1997 at age 67, becoming the oldest player to ever win a national championship in a racket sport.

About that Forverts truck

A passerby, Leah Strock, spotted the faux Forverts delivery truck Sunday night on East Broadway, outside the Forward Building on the Lower East Side, where the newspaper was headquartered until the 1970s — back when it was published only in Yiddish. Beneath the Hebrew letters spelling out Forverts on the side of the vehicle were the words: “The Jewish Daily Forward. New York’s Largest Daily.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer outside the Forward Building in 1968. Photo by David Attie/Getty Images

The signage on the truck may have been inspired by a Forverts delivery vehicle pictured in a 1968 photo of Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote for the paper. But it’s unclear what year the film scene is set, or whether the Forverts gets more than a cameo in the story. I was unable to reach anyone connected to the movie, and The Hollywood Reporter said information on the movie’s plot has been “highly guarded.”

But it certainly has an A-list cast: In addition to Chalamet as Reisman, it stars Gwyneth Paltrow; the rapper Tyler, the Creator; and playing Chalamet’s mother, Fran Drescher. The film is directed by Josh Safdie, who co-wrote the script with Ronald Bronstein.

Reisman: A larger-than-life character

The Hollywood Reporter said that while the film “was previously rumored to be loosely inspired” by Reisman’s life story, it’s being billed as “a fictionalized original film.”

Marty Reisman. Photo by Dario Cantatore/Getty Images

Certainly Reisman’s biography would make for a compelling movie. He was a larger-than-life character who wore Borsalino fedoras and Panama hats and measured the height of the net before each game with a $100 bill. He won and lost fortunes gambling on his own prowess, and “never backed down from a bet,” as he told The New York Times. “I took on people in the gladiatorial spirit.”

He could hit balls with a frying pan, but his trademark trick was breaking a cigarette in half with a ball hit from across the table, a feat he called the “Marlboro massacre.” He could also play sitting down or blindfolded. Columnist Murray Kempton once described him as a “perfect specimen of a lost classic age, thin as a blade, the step a matador’s, the stroke a kitten’s.”

He hated the paddles coated in thick rubber that were introduced in the early 1950s because they didn’t make as much noise as the old paddles, called hardbats. And if you think table tennis is some nerdy suburban pastime best played in a basement rec room, consider this: In 1949, 20,000 people in Wembley Stadium watched as Reisman, a skinny 19-year-old, defeated Viktor Barna, a five-time world champion, in the English Open.

Reisman, who died in 2012 at age 82, also operated the Riverside Table Tennis Courts at 96th Street and Broadway, frequented by the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Bobby Fischer, Kurt Vonnegut and David Mamet.

Marty Supreme is scheduled to be released some time in mid-to-late 2025. But you won’t have to wait that long to see Chalamet as Dylan. The movie about the singer, A Complete Unknown, comes out Dec. 25 — perfect timing for all those Jewish fans who have nothing else to do after eating Chinese food on Christmas Day.

Beth Harpaz worked at the Forward as a reporter and now manages the Bintel Brief advice column. She previously covered politics and breaking news for The Associated Press. Email: [email protected].

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