Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

swearingen_ar This funny movie is just plain fun...!!! The thirty year old Shirley McLaine is a hoot..!! Peter Ustinov has a ball with his role as the king. You should know this movie is a farce; it is not great art, but for some fun, I suggest you watch this movie. If you do watch it and like it...consider it my gift to you.

mark.waltz Arabs, Jews, college football teams, United States Politicians and the military, all get scathed in this over-the-top comedy where a fictional Arab country tries to go American after the son of the King is denied the chance to play on an Ivy League football team. It all starts with famed photographer Shirley MacLaine agreeing to go over to Fawzia to infiltrate the aging King's harem, and while there, she gets involved with one of her previous victims (Richard Crenna as the title character) in aiding the Fawzian football team to play and beat Notre Dame. This ain't no Knute Rockne or even Gus the football kicking mule. This is mud-slinging at its silliest, and you can almost hear the screenwriters laughing out loud as they see the dialog they've written and silly gags they've made into something that even the Three Stooges would turn down. The most outlandish casting comes with Peter Ustinov, truly overdoing it as King Fawz, whether driving around on his outrageous choo-choo train, playing with an all gold model train, or overreacting to MacLaine's fat suit disguise to avoid spending an evening in his company. This is the type of comedy that probably appealed in 1965 to 13 year old boys who were laughing at Gilligan's Island and re-runs of the Three Stooges shorts. For adults, this will appeal to them for the plethora of character actors who appear in small roles, among them Charles Lane as MacLaine's wise-cracking boss (apologizing for making a mistake in hiring her for this project as he really needed a woman), Fred Clark, Jim Backus, David Lewis ("General Hospital's" first Edward Quartermain) and Harry Morgan as government flackies arguing over who sent an Arab King pigskin luggage, and especially Wilfred Hyde White as Ustinov's bossy assistant who treats him like a child. There's even Leon Askin ("Hogan's Heroes"), Richard Deacon ("The Dick Van Dyke Show") and a young Jerry Orbach. While Patrick Adiarte ("The King and I", "Flower Drum Song") does not at all seem to be Arab, he's very charming as Ustinov's young son, making me feel sorry for the woman forced to sleep with Ustinov. Way down the cast list is young James Caan as one of Notre Dame's football players. It seems like they kept everything in, including the harem sink. You've got to give credit where credit is due, and this movie (controversial in 1964) has one of the most outlandish opening songs in film history, sung by its very funny star. I just wonder what she thought of this movie at the time, because I think I've read somewhere that now she considers it to be a career embarrassment. Certainly at the time, she was more known for her comedy, and this was in line with "The Apartment" and "Irma La Douce" that saw her as somewhat pathetic, if still interesting, characters. I happen to find it a guilty pleasure, having laughed hysterically at it in my early 20's, and smiling with amusement and remembrance 30 years later. Still, it's up there on many "worst" lists, and if indeed it does come off very tacky at times and definitely a slap in the face at the groups I mention above, it's an example of freedom of expression that doesn't exist anymore and hopefully might remind us not to take everything around us so seriously.

max von meyerling 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.

Tenkun 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.