L'Encombrant Mr. John

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 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?

This movie was newly released, showing in a newly completed "rocking chair" theatre in Orlando FL. Only 15 then, had gone to FL by bus from NC, to visit a friend dying of cancer. We bought bright surfer shirts-a new rage, and went to see this movie at the new theatre. I obviously have a good time youthful impression connected with seeing his movie. The movie itself is a vague memory of a humorous football game, cute harem girls including the young Shirley McLaine, a neat railroad running around a palace, etc. While the acting quality etc. may not have sunk in at that time and age, it was a neat comedy I would love to see again. Wish it would be released on video. Even wish it might appear on TV sometime. Perhaps one day someone may have taped a televised showing and a copy may be available that way. Anyway, I think it was a pleasant comedy, in good taste, that anyone would enjoy.......Except for them celibate types at Notre Dame!!!

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" just might be my all-time favorite movie. I first saw it when I was about 10 and made sure to check it out whenever it ran in those pre-cable days. As a middle-ager who picked up a MAD magazine/Stan Freberg-style sense of humor at age 6 and never outgrew it, "John Goldfarb" covered all the bases- whoops, this was a football movie! The great Peter Ustinov truly carried it as the goofy, model-train-obsessed sheik, and the closing football game was Marx Bros. quality. This one's got everything a fan of pre-"Saturday Night Live" satire can ask for, plus it had Shirley MacLaine before she went into orbit. A young John Williams did the funny score (including the Notre Dame fight song played belly-dancer style). I was just the right age to appreciate the presence of sitcom regulars like Crenna and Backus (I still love "Gilligan"). I'd give anything to find "John Goldfarb" on video. And the kicker? It was written by William Peter Blatty, who scared the daylights out of us with "The Exorcist" a decade later! I prefer this Blatty, thank you. "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home"- the perfect off-the-wall movie for MAD/ Freberg/"Gilligan"/Marx fans of all ages. If you know and love this picture, you're on my A-list for life!