"It's the happiest, wackiest, zaniest comedy you'll ever see!" screamed the tagline on the British poster for this manic '60s movie. As far as mis-selling a product goes, this has to be one of the most misleading claims in the history of cinema. Happy? Wacky? Zany? Comedy? There are only nine words in the entire tagline, and four of them are completely untrue! John Goldfarb, Please Come Home is a complete disaster from start to finish, an embarrassment for its stars and director, and a film that will leave viewers shaking their head in disbelief and asking one very pertinent question: how could this much talent serve up something this awful?
Once-trailblazing journalist Jenny Ericson (Shirley Maclaine) is on the verge of being ditched by Strife magazine. Her pizazz has gone; her eye for a great story has deserted her. Her one shot at redemption comes when she decides to go undercover in the Middle Eastern country of Fawzia, working to expose the sleazy happenings in the harem of the infantile and lecherous King Fawz (Peter Ustinov). Meanwhile, the American Air Force enlists an accident prone pilot by the name of John Goldfarb (Richard Crenna) to fly a spy mission over the Soviet Union. Goldfarb has borne the unwanted nickname "Wrong Way Goldfarb" for years – ever since, as a Notre Dame football player, he ran 95 yards to score a touchdown in his OWN end zone – and he is soon up to his old tricks again when he accidentally flies thousands of miles off course and ends up crashing his plane in Fawzia. The befuddled Goldfarb ends up in King Fawz's palace, where he comes across Jenny disguised as a harem girl, pursuing her undercover scoop. Soon though, she has a bigger story on her hands when the King blackmails Goldfarb into coaching a ragtag Arab football team, and arranges for them play a fixed exhibition match against Goldfarb's old crew, the boys from Notre Dame.
Based on a novel by William Peter Blatty (later famous for penning The Exorcist), this wild farce is pitched at a level of frantic hysteria from the word go. Every actor is encouraged to shout and scream with reckless abandon – I don't remember another time when the usually likable MacLaine comes across so shrill and irritating, while Ustinov is horribly wasted in what can only be described as a retarded role as the King. Even Crenna - who has made his share of turkeys down the years – might count this as a candidate for his all-time nadir. Blatty's script is an unholy mess, piling absurdity upon absurdity without any sense of comic timing, narrative flow or subtlety. In the face of all this chaos, director J-Lee Thompson throws caution to the wind and allows everyone to do whatever the hell they please. The result is like witnessing a motorway pile-up in horrifying close-up colour. Collectors of terrible movies will have a ball with this one.
Once-trailblazing journalist Jenny Ericson (Shirley Maclaine) is on the verge of being ditched by Strife magazine. Her pizazz has gone; her eye for a great story has deserted her. Her one shot at redemption comes when she decides to go undercover in the Middle Eastern country of Fawzia, working to expose the sleazy happenings in the harem of the infantile and lecherous King Fawz (Peter Ustinov). Meanwhile, the American Air Force enlists an accident prone pilot by the name of John Goldfarb (Richard Crenna) to fly a spy mission over the Soviet Union. Goldfarb has borne the unwanted nickname "Wrong Way Goldfarb" for years – ever since, as a Notre Dame football player, he ran 95 yards to score a touchdown in his OWN end zone – and he is soon up to his old tricks again when he accidentally flies thousands of miles off course and ends up crashing his plane in Fawzia. The befuddled Goldfarb ends up in King Fawz's palace, where he comes across Jenny disguised as a harem girl, pursuing her undercover scoop. Soon though, she has a bigger story on her hands when the King blackmails Goldfarb into coaching a ragtag Arab football team, and arranges for them play a fixed exhibition match against Goldfarb's old crew, the boys from Notre Dame.
Based on a novel by William Peter Blatty (later famous for penning The Exorcist), this wild farce is pitched at a level of frantic hysteria from the word go. Every actor is encouraged to shout and scream with reckless abandon – I don't remember another time when the usually likable MacLaine comes across so shrill and irritating, while Ustinov is horribly wasted in what can only be described as a retarded role as the King. Even Crenna - who has made his share of turkeys down the years – might count this as a candidate for his all-time nadir. Blatty's script is an unholy mess, piling absurdity upon absurdity without any sense of comic timing, narrative flow or subtlety. In the face of all this chaos, director J-Lee Thompson throws caution to the wind and allows everyone to do whatever the hell they please. The result is like witnessing a motorway pile-up in horrifying close-up colour. Collectors of terrible movies will have a ball with this one.