User Reviews

I have seen the movie, many years ago, and enjoyed it. Had a great cast, and it was a group of actors strong enough to overcome any serious script problems. My main interest is in the producer, Steve Parker. He and I share the same name.

The first time I went to Japan was in 1979. When I would tell people my name, they would all react as if they'd seen a ghost. I wondered why, until one local finally told me, "Oh, Steve Parker very famous in Japan. He's married to Shirley MacLaine!".

Little did I know that was perhaps the reason I was treated rather courteously and deferentially throughout my trip. However, having been to Japan more than 20 times now, either for the automobile business or for visiting the Buddhist shrine Taisekiji at the foot of Mt. Fuji, I find the Japanese people treat most visitors, especially those from western countries, very well.

Also, the current generation of Japanese people in the age group of 20 -30 or so are not as familiar with "that" Steve Parker as their parents. So while I sometimes get a nod of recognition from some older Japanese now when I introduce myself, it is nowhere as serious or 'ceremonial' as it was 25 years ago! Read more about car movies, Japan and the worldwide auto industry at www.SteveParker.com (no news there about Shirley MacLaine!).

And if anyone can tell me where to find more information about "that" Steve Parker, please email me at sparker@dc.rr.com. It would be greatly appreciated!

I was fortunate enough to see this movie recently for the first time.I could not understand why we had not seen it in the UK on tv since it's general release in 1965.Being a Shirley Maclaine fan,I was looking forward to it.Was I surprised!I found it highly amusing,often laugh out loud funny.Peter Ustinov is incredible in this.I think the director J.Lee Thompson is English,and maybe that's something Ustinov responded to.The scenes with the animals in particular,are outrageously funny.Being a Brit,I'm afraid to say I don't really understand American football,but in this movie you don't have to.Sit back for 90 minutes,suspend belief,if you can,think your way back to the 60's and just enjoy.My son who's into modern movies and the new stars,saw some of this and laughed out loud.It's wonderful,crazy fun and not to be taken seriously.John Goldfarb,Please Come Back.Soon.8/10

When you think of zany Hollywood comedies, the names of director J. Lee Thompson and screenwriter William Peter Blatty probably don't immediately come to mind. "John Goldfarb" is a with-it satire of politics, fads, football, feminism and other topical issues which audiences of 1965 preferred to be without. Richard Crenna plays a piloting spy (nicknamed "Wrong Way Goldfarb") who thinks he's bailed out over the U.S.S.R.; instead, it's an Arab country ruled by gadget-crazy nut Peter Ustinov. Meanwhile, magazine writer Shirley MacLaine (who also warbles the title song!) has infiltrated Ustinov's harem, apparently trying to get the scoop of the century (but on what, I couldn't figure out). Too many targets and sight-gags render the loosely-hinged plot irrelevant, however some of MacLaine's shrieks are good for a laugh (and she looks cute in a hot-pink two-piece). What were these talented filmmakers thinking when they hatched this rotten egg? It's just a brightly-painted doodle, but even screwball nonsense should have at least one sane person to steer the ship. The cast here is kept running back and forth, waving their arms and yelling insults, while director Thompson must've been chortling in his sleep. * from ****

Without doubt one of the worst movies ever made, and considering that the others up there in the top ten were all rank amateur efforts (like Ed Wood) and JOHN GOLDFARB, PLEASE COME HOME was a major studio release that's saying something. When I was a kid I used to go to just about every Shirly McLean picture from ARTISTS AND MODELS on. Her career had a few more star turns left in it before she became a character actress but any thought of Richard Crenna (of whom I was also a big fan) becoming a leading man stopped right here.

The most notable thing about this stinker was that it engendered one of the great publicity coups of all time. Realizing that they had an unreleasable mess on their hands, Twentieth Century Fox somehow contrived to have football powerhouse the University of Notre Dame sue to keep John Goldfarb from being released. It became a cause celebre and when it did open three months later the houses were packed to see what all the fuss was about. What they found was infantile drivel.

JOHN GOLDFARB reeks of being a 'good idea' and if one were to recount the plot it sounds like the basis for a funny comedy. A CIA U2 pilot (think Francis Gary Powers) comes down not in Russia but in Arabia. The king there is smarting because his son didn't make the football team at Notre Dame and inveigles the State Department, in exchange for returning the pilot and his plane, to make Notre Dame send their team to Arabia to play his son's pick up team. A great idea to develop after one too many bourbons along with the boys at a poker table but in the harsh light of day it should have been clear that there was no place to go in the development of the plot. Instead they pressed on and just did a lot of stupid things that people who have no sense of humor but remember stuff from other films think is funny. Since they were funny when they first saw them then they must just be funny in an absolute sense. I mean we've all seen Curly be magnificently funny in the Three Stooges films but would doing his act in a story driven comedy like this be funny? Since Peter Ustinov as the king acts like a drooling idiot from the start there's no where to go with that act. Don't believe that stuff that its merely political correctness that has caused this meretricious piece of crap to go around with a bell warning one and all that it is unclean, but the fact that it is like making Jell-o with sewer water that makes it unappetizing and odoriferous. But see it to see just how jaw droppingly unfunny a comedy can be.

Saw this turkey on Fox Movie Channel on 6/7/09. Maltin would be correct if he hated this movie.The movie was trying to be a zany comedy. Unfortunately,it did not work.The plot was silly. there was no continuation. Ustinov's Arabian king with a mind of a six year old character was annoying and infantile. What was the point of having a U2 pilot as a character in the movie except to show that he went in the wrong direction( By the way, he is known as 'wrong way Golfarb') the only decent acting was from Shirley Maclaine playing an undercover reporter in the king's harem. Richard Crenna and Wilfrid Hyde-White(as the king's aide),must have regretted taking this role. They did try to do a good job with the material in hand. Harry Morgan was OK, as was Jim Bakus.The football game(on a grass field constructed in the desert), also got to be very annoying and tedious! If people are comparing this film favorably to "It's A Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World", they would be wrong- The latter film is a piece of art compared to this bomb!

Two sorts of minds watch "John Goldfarb"--"realists" who regard the movie as a satirical send-up of U.S. public-interest postmodernists, and "surrealists" who regard the surrealized Establishment in the U.S. as realistic and miss the movie's point. Since I am the leader of the first group, I regard "Goldfarb" as one of the funniest satires ever made. The behavior of Establishment types throughout the film is consonant with and nearly as inane as their real-life performances before or since 1965. The plot involves a man dogged by cosmic bad luck, John Goldfarb, dubbed "Wrong Way" by a female reporter after an unfortunate football play some years earlier. A U-2 pilot for the USAF, he meets the same reporter, while going the wrong way in a Washington building. He takes off on a secret mission over Russia, she is forced by her editor to take on an un-feminist assignment: to get the lowdown on girls being smuggled into a Middle Eastern harem, belonging to king Fawz of Fawzia. The third thread of the story is the need to placate oil-rich U.S.ally Fawz after our ambassador sends him pigskin luggage for his anniversary and his son is dropped from Notre Dame's football team, and complains the coach did it because he is Arab, not Irish. The three strands become a tangled knot when his instruments fail and Goldfarb lands not in Russia but in Fawzia, when his fuel runs out. And, of course, he is recruited by Fawz--to train an Arab football team that can defeat Notre Dame and avenge the insult to his son...Goldfarb tries to hold out, shows the King film of Notre Dame's powerful college squad but cannot dissuade him. The King then bribes him with a harem girl; he recognizes Jenny, the girl reporter; she is now trapped in the harem, having been told Fawz is too old for sex but having been singled out for attention by the lecherous king. He chooses her from among a group of eager dancers, to Fawz's displeasure; and they set up housekeeping in a room of the palace; every few hours, a golden toy train goes by, and Fawz asks, "Are you still happy with her?". This Goldfarb nominates (classically) as "dittahowatrola", since a victrola is playing on the train, while a camera snaps flash pictures and a penguin is carried by. He trains a team, finally, to get to go home. Of course they are a disaster--until he recruits Bedouin warriors as college students: "Our country right or wrong," he murmurs. Then it's the turn of the government which lost him in the first place to try to deal with his disappearance; they put ads in newspapers, "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home". And the State Department has to convince the head of Notre Dame to allow his team to play the Arab squad, no easy task. The game is played; and the party that precedes it and the game have become cinematic classics. This is a sexy, spirited and often intelligent romp with only the utter ineptitude of the U.S.'s State Department types as its parody element; it has marvelous satire of Republican governmental methods and sly jabs at every group concerned. Directed with style by J. Lee Thompson, the film boasts set decorations by Stuart A. Reiss and Walter M. Scott, lovely costumes by Adele Balkan, Edith Head and Ray Aghayan, bright cinematography by legendary Leon Shamroy, art direction by Dale Hennesy and Jack Martin Smith. The cast included Richard Crenna as the "crooked astronaut 'Wrong Way' Goldfarb, Pete Ustinov hamming delightfully as the King, Shirley Maclaine trying hard as a frigid girl reporter, Fred Clark, Harry Morgan, Jim Backus, Richard Deacon, David Lewis, and Milton Frome as the government hacks, plus Telly Savalas, Leon Askin, Jerome Cowan, Charles Lane, Jerry Ohrbach, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Patrick Adiarte as the Prince, Scott Brady as Notre Dame's Coach, Jackie Coogan as the University's beleaguered Chancellor, Angela Douglas, Nai Bonet, Irene Tsu and Sultanna as harem girls and now-familiar actors in smaller roles. The film has a fun situation, color, laughs and pretty girls. When Fred Clark pulls the pin on a place destroyed by a cobalt bomb and wonders, "Thulia Oman?", we know we are dealing with a realistic portrayal our state department. Music by John Williams, state department types named Subtle Overreach and Miles Whitepaper--this may be Hollywood but it's as near as the latest headline.

"John Goldfarb, Please Come Home" is a farce seemingly typical of the '60s. The story centers around a bumbling pilot and former college football player who finds himself as coach of a ragtag football team in the Middle East. William Peter Blatty, author of "The Exorcist," wrote this comedy (hard to believe!). It's a movie full of political incorrectness. Peter Ustinov is at the heart, playing a crackpot Arab sultan. And Shirley MacLaine does a memorable turn as a female reporter going undercover in the harem. She does a unique belly dance here! Of course, a movie like this couldn't be made today. But let's just look back and enjoy the laughs, shall we?

I saw this as a child & thought it was bad. Now that time has gone by, it is just awful. I would put it as the worst film ever made, but the cast raises it to the level of a 1 instead of a zero. This movie scared me away from Richard Crenna films for the rest of my like. I remember him on The Real McCoys with Walter Brennan. That was much better than this. I hope todays terrorists never get a hold of this as the sheik stereotype in this film would confuse them & make them hate Americans even more if that is possible. Even Shirley Mclaine who is normally an appealing woman (espcially at this younger age), is not appealing at all in this movie. Don't waste your time on this one, I warn you as it is too late for me but not for you if you haven't seen this turkey.

I can't find this movie anywhere. I know that Notre Dame objected to it - they delayed its release with a lawsuit that was eventually dismissed. But it has disappeared altogether... Did the sensitive Saudis buy 'em all up?

Robert Morley once was asked why he was in so many garbage pictures. To wit he replied, "For the money dear boy". One has to ask how come Morley missed John Goldfarb, Please Come Home because if there ever was a "for the money" picture this was it for so many others.

I doubt you will ever find as many talented people this side of the first Casino Royale film involved in such a disaster of a film. This is one unfunny Cold War satire with a rare laugh or two there. The laughs come at a bunch of people looking ridiculous.

The title role is played by Richard Crenna who was then trying to get a career going on the big screen at the time. He plays Wrong Way Goldfarb who was a famous college halfback made famous for running the wrong way covering the field at a college bowl game.

He hasn't improved his sense of direction any as he pilots his U-2 spy plane over the Middle East kingdom of Fawz and it comes down there with him taken alive.

When King Peter Ustinov learns who he is he decides to keep Crenna and make him an offer to coach a football team he's organizing for his son. He's already built a football stadium in the middle of the desert. The son Patrick Adiarte was kicked out of Notre Dame and off the football team. Why didn't he just buy Notre Dame?

This of course has set off a crisis in Washington because they want to get the plane back with Crenna as an afterthought. On the ground in Fawz is Shirley MacLaine as a reporter working a story she's gotten a whiff of. Maybe she smelled the script.

I thought Peter Ustinov looked especially ridiculous speaking in gibberish throughout. I'd love to know how he got into this, did he really need the money?

This one's a Cold War stinker.

I saw "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home" today hoping to see a funny Richard Crenna/Shirley Maclaine film. I was not disappointed. It was the absolute epitome of the '60s, made right in the middle of the decade. The music, done by a young "Johnny" Williams simply managed to reinforce this notion. The opening/ending theme, sung by the lead actress, had an Arabian sound to it, fitting enough. The movie takes place when it was made, in the middle of the Cold War. As it begins, a US ambassador to the nonexistent Middle East country of Fawzia (strangely similar to Saudi Arabia) has just sent the Sultan, a toy train obsessor with a golden golf cart and a harem, pigskin luggage, which just so happens to offend the Muslim. Therefore, the Americans intend to do everything they can to appease him. They didn't count on two things, though: John "Wrong Way" Goldfarb, all-American football star and U2 pilot, and Jenny Ericson, reporter for STRIFE magazine, who intends to get inside the sultan's harem and report on it. Meanwhile, Goldfarb gets lost (big surprise) and crash lands in Fawzia. There are all sorts of crazy complications involving Goldfarb, the reporter (and concubine), and the sultan's would-be football player son, who attended Notre Dame college. It all culminates in an insane football game between Notre Dame and the Fawz U team. If you miss it, you're missing something out of this world. Of course, if you deplore '60s comedies, you might wanna steer clear. Maclaine and Crenna are great together, and Ustinov as the eccentric sultan is brilliant. For all its insanity, I loved it.

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home is a movie that the whole family can watch and will appeal to older children until the age of 14 and adults 30 and up. Those in-between might not enjoy it as much. It is an amusing movie with little plot. The acting is good. The humor is good and old school. It is a prime time movie. However, there is little substance to the movie. Yet, there is not supposed to be any, just funny. There are a lot of good actors/actresses in the movie to make it funny and serious enough to stay funny and silly. Laughter is the best medicine, or so they say -- so enjoy this medicine for the soul. It is a crazy film. Bring plenty of popcorn and family or friends to enjoy this old school funny movie. No depth, no substance, just crazy laughter.

I wouldn't have thought it possible for a film with a cast like this to be so unfunny, and director J. Lee Thompson not surprisingly never made another comedy again (unless you count 'The Greek Tycoon'). It was reckless to invite comparisons with the likes of 'The Kid Brother' and 'Horse Feathers' by ending with a slapstick football match, and the lawsuit against the film brought by Notre Dame is the one authentically hilarious thing about this turkey.

Peter Ustinov tearing about on his golf scooter anticipates the less amusing moments from 'The Monkees' and 'The Banana Splits' (with appropriately clunking musical accompaniment by the overrated 'Johnny' Williams); while his character is a depressing harbinger of all those comedy foreigners he would later play in lousy films over the next quarter of a century.

Despite having recently scripted the greatest Clouseau film of them all, 'A Shot in the Dark' (1964), William Peter Blatty truly laid an egg with this tasteless mishmash of leering sex farce and Cold War satire published by him as a novel in 1963. His script contrives to namedrop the likes of T.S. Eliot and Christopher Marlowe but is nothing like as clever as it seems to think it is, and has something to offend everyone.

Since it was produced by her own husband Steve Parker, Shirley MacLaine presumably must shoulder some of the blame of making a film so archaically politically incorrect. One of its few saving graces, however, is that it hails from the days before she began taking herself very seriously and was still quite charmingly unaffected (witness the gutsy way she belts out the absurd title song); although much of the time she bizarrely seems to be still wearing the pancake makeup she wore in 'My Geisha'.

William Peter Blatty, to refresh your memory, wrote the book and screenplay for one of the scariest movies ever, "The Exorcist." His script for "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home" isn't as scary- but it's close. Watching usually down-to-earth TV actors yelling and screaming at one another doesn't work when they all do it at once. At least, that's how it sounds. It's probably this film, along with the other clunkers he's written scripts for ("What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?," "Darling Lili") that made him write "The Exorcist"- as penance for all those sins he committed in the name of entertainment.

Happened to catch this movie on cable (the Fox Movie Channel) for those curious few.

It's a clever, 60's comedy with then-youngsters Richard Crenna and Shirley MacLaine that had the perfect blend of interests for my partner and myself -- football (for me) and bellydancing (for her). An early (1964) forerunner of later football films THE LONGEST YARD and M*A*S*H and a somewhat worthy successor to the Marx Brothers with a surf guitar beat. Throw in an able cast of well-known actors (Jim Backus, Peter Ustinov, etc.) with the tweaking of the Notre Dame football legacy and it's a nice little "lost" chestnut of a film that hasn't been shown often enough.

An out of control comedy typical of the 1960's, which produced many of the most self indulgent comedy movies of all time in my opinion. Seemingly bereft of coherent planning or discipline, with a half baked script without any wit or sophistication, which resorts to frantic shouting and and sub Keystone Cops slapstick to try and conceal an almost complete lack of plot, character development or amusing dialogue. I presume they were relying heavily on improvisation save the day, but if so, little of value comes of it. (From what I have experienced, improve can provide the cream on the cake, but is seldom a satisfying substitute cake in itself.) The Swinging 60's was a something of a Golden age for the arts, as the World shook of the post WW2 blues, a time of innovation and experiment, some of which worked and others not so much. This is an example of self indulgent twaddle of the highest order, where I'm sure everyone involved had a high old time while making it, but when considering it in retrospect will flush with embarrassment. The attitudes it displays toward Arab culture and women in general appear cringe worthy in the current political climate, but may provide some relief from the tedium for those who can enjoy the retrospective lack of political correctness. Also model train enthusiasts, such as Sir Rod Stewart, may enjoy it for it's extensive use of model railways. Journeymen and veterans like Wilfred Hyde White, Harry Morgan and Jim Bacchus grin and bear it, while picking up a no doubt generous paycheck. While those who have admired the past work of Shirley MacLaine and Peter Ustinov will wonder how they justified this to their artistic conscience? In my opinion a strong contender for worst movie ever made.

Woohoo, it's 1965! Women can show their bellybuttons and say "sex" in movies! Okay, now you've just learned the gist of John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! The 1960s were a glorious time period for Hollywood; during no other time could movie stars be forced to take part in extremely silly movies, and then continue to have a long and glorious career despite them. Doris Day quit the business because she was only offered silly movies, but that was just the sign of the times. Everyone made silly movies! Shirley MacLaine's role could have been played by any number of silly actresses, and clearly, taking this part didn't ruin her career.

Richard Crenna plays a government man notorious for getting lost during assignments. In fact, straight-laced "iceberg" journalist Shirley MacLaine has written several stories about him, dubbing him "Wrong Way Goldfarb". Terribly embarrassed, Crenna pretends he's disappeared in the Siberian Mountains, when he's actually taken a wrong turn and landed his plane in the Middle East. He's taken in by Peter Ustinov, a king with a never-ending sex drive, and told he can choose one woman of his very large harem. Little does he know that Shirley MacLaine has smuggled herself into the harem to write an undercover report on the king! That isn't exactly how the plot is unfolded in the movie; the exposition (and really the rest of the movie) is riddled with 1960s sex gags, portrayals of women as objects, stereotypes about the Middle East that would later be looked at as offensive, and bumbling government jokes. For example, at the start of the movie, the men in the office are talking about Shirley behind her back. "Oh, all she needs is a good roll in the—" one man says. The scene cuts to Shirley bent over a water cooler, and man slaps her bottom. "Hey!" she exclaims. Oo! Look what they were able to get away with in 1965! As silly and offensive as this movie is, it actually has some cute parts to it. Shirley doesn't want to have to sleep with the king, so she dons a disguise so hideous he literally jumps on his go-cart and speeds away from her. Offensive, but still pretty hilarious. Crenna helps Shirley out by selecting her from the harem so that she still won't have to sleep with the king, and randomly throughout the night, the king barges into their room (still on his go-cart) to see if Crenna is satisfied or if he's prepared to give her up. Offensive, but still a little funny.

So, if you're not a modern day feminist and you won't get on your high horse about the Middle East stereotypes, and if you're in the mood for a silly 60s movie, get ready for a few laughs.

Saw this years ago but saw it several times. Early sexy funny Shirley, hilarious Ustinov, Crenna when he was in top comedic form. Great fun. Maltin hated it so you know it had to have something going for it. Too bad it got trashed. Very offbeat & funny & appealing.

"John Goldfarb, Please Come Home" is one of those movies that Hollywood moguls of the time probably wished they hadn't made. The critics overall thought it was a dud, and the public agreed. It bombed at the box office and lost money for Fox. Yet, the book on which the film was based sold well and got sterling reviews for its humor. The film, though, is something else. What could and should have been a very good political satire, turned out to be a lot of expensive buffoonery with near zero humor.

Great comedy satires are built mostly on dialog with great screenplays. That's especially so with political satires. Think of examples, such as "Ninotchka" of 1939, "The Senator was Indiscreet" of 1947, "Our Man in Havana" of 1959, or "One, Two, Three" of 1961. Some also have hilarious antics that go hand-in-hand with witty and funny dialog. Examples of this type include "A Royal Scandal" of 1945, "The Mouse that Roared" of 1959, or "Dr. Strangelove" of 1964. And a few films of this narrower genre have mostly hilarious antics with very little funny dialog, but still with excellent screenplays. Examples of this small group are "Comrade X" of 1940 and "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" of 1966.

But what happened between the book and this film that is virtuously humorless, is a puzzle. Two things seem apparent. The writers wrote dialog, especially for the various U.S. government characters, that fails miserably to even evince a chuckle or a smile. There is absolutely no tongue-in-cheek. The actors just blurt out lines that say to the audience that this is supposed to be funny. The script is infantile, treating the audience as mindless or unable to understand any subtleties of language and humor. There is no subtly. There is no understatement. Nor overstatement. Where is the innuendo, or the conjecture? Where are the oxymorons, the malapropisms, spoonerisms or gaffes? There is none of that in this film script. The only language device used here is gibberish, mostly in Peter Ustinov's King Fawz. And to go with it, no funny antics but an almost continuous stream of buffoonery. And that clearly lacks the humor that is apparent in films of The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, or the Marx Brothers. There again, though, those comics had screenplays in which their antics and buffoonery meshed for wonderful humor.

It's too bad with such a huge cast of prominent actors of the day, that 20th Century Fox couldn't make this into a very good comedy and political satire. Perhaps the reluctance of some prospective cast members to accept roles should have signaled the problems with the screenplay. Perhaps, too, the lack of any early backers in Hollywood was a sign of a problem with the plot. Then, after a book was written that got some good reviews for its comedy, it had a hard time getting made.

Another long-time writer, whose reviews are frequently helpful and that I follow and enjoy, probably hit the nail on the head as to how such a bad movie came about with a fistful of prominent actors. He notes actors who have made films they knew, or thought were bad, but they made them anyway for the pay. They needed or wanted the money. Well, the likes of Shirley MacLaine, Peter Ustinov, Richard Crenna, Wilfrid-Hyde-White, Jim Backus, Harry Morgan and Fred Clark got their money, but 20th Century Fox lost a lot of money on this dud.

My two stars are for the lavish sets and technology used to "prop" this film - its gizmos and gadgets. Most obvious are the king's go-cart which is made to look to be rocket-powered, and then the plethora of the elaborate electric trains.

Here are the only two lines from this film that I guess might get a chuckle from some people - not many, but some.

Secretary of State Deems Sarajevo, "It may be a disaster, Whitepaper, but it is not a mistake."

Jerry Ericson, "Nobody's ever called me as asp before."

Watching this movie mad me laugh when I was 9 and memories of it still make me laugh today! Not many movies have that ability. It is nonsensical at times. But that was what made it a great movie! I wish they would come out with it on DVD. America needs a good old fashioned laugh movie... Bright colors and funny gags and all. For all of the advances they have made in the movie industry, movies like John Goldfarb stand out as clear, bright and yes maybe a bit unreal. The harem dancing was so funny. I can remember my sisters trying to dance like them. It was a movie the whole family could watch and not worry about certain words...... Virtual Reality comes to mind. haha We lose ourselves enough in the cyber world as it is. John Goldfarb brings us home... Even if he had to get lost to do it.