JOHN GOLDFARB, PLEASE COME HOME
US, 1965, 96 minutes, Colour.
Shirley Mac Laine, Peter Ustinov, Richard Crenna, Jim Backus, Scott Brady, Fred Clark, Wilfred Hyde White, Harry Morgan, Richard Deacon, Leon Askin.
Directed by J. Lee Thompson.
John Goldfarb, Please Come Home is an extravagant comedy of the mid-60s – with the touch of the permissive society emerging in the United States at the time. However, it is a comedy which is tongue-in-cheek. This can be seen immediately from the exaggerated comic names of most of the characters including Peter Ustinov as King Fawz and Harry Morgan as Secretary of State Deems Sarajevo. Fred Clark is Hymus Overidge, the head of the CIA.
The film is about the Notre Dame football team travelling to the Middle East and getting caught up in the politics – as well as the harem. Shirley Mac Laine portrays the magazine reporter from Strife magazine. Richard Crenna is John Goldfarb. (Crenna is probably better remembered for his character roles in the 70s and 80s in such films as First Blood and the other Rambo films as well as many television movies.)
The film achieved a certain notoriety at the time of its release because Notre Dame University took out a court injunction to delay the release of the film. The claim was that 20th Century Fox had “knowingly and illegally misappropriated, diluted and commercially exploited for their private profit the names, symbols, football team, prestige, high reputation and goodwill” of the university. The studio finally won against Notre Dame. They objected to the amoral behaviour of the students from Notre Dame.
The film was written by William Peter Blatty, an author with a Catholic background, best known as the author of The Exorcist. The film was directed by Britain’s J. Lee Thompson who had made interesting films in Britain during the 1950s including such films as Tiger Bay. He moved to the United States, made more spectacular films like The Guns of Navarone and stayed in the United States making a lot of action adventures, especially in the 70s and 80s with Charles Bronson.
1. The overall impact of this film, success or failure? The critics were most hostile. The authorities at Notre Dame sued. Why?
2. The value of colour, Panavision, American scenes, atmosphere of the Middle East, modern music and the title song?
3. How successful was the material on paper, the spoof of American politics, Arab oil millionaires and their use of their wealth, the sixties and the atmosphere of espionage and cold war American diplomacy, sport? How good were the ideas for the spoof?
4. Was there a corresponding success in the film? Comment on the style, the exaggerations, the characterizations, the communication of the jokes?
5. The presentation of Fawzi as a place, the opening, the American ambassador and his gifts, the British Administrator and his hold over the chieftain, the chief and his playing with trains, the modern harem, football ambitions? Was the satire on the Arab sheikhs clever? What major points of satire were made? Peter Ustinov's portrayal of the chieftain?
6. The character of 'Wrong-way' Goldfarb? Richard Crenna and his style? The satirical overtones in the character, especially as applied to a pilot flying over Russia? The overtones of jokes about sport? The credibility of his crash, his being rescued In Fawzi? The command to train the football team and the various sequences showing his exasperation? The point of his choosing a woman from the harem?
7. Shirley MacLaine's skill in portraying a reporter? The skittish overtones of the characterization? Her going into the harem? Her becoming ugly to scare off the sheikh? Her giving the name to Goldfarb, her dependence on him, the hostility, growing involvement? Was she a credible character? The zest with which Shirley MacLaine? played her?
8. The satire in the presentation of the State Department, Secretary of State, C.I.A.? Their language, behaviour, bungling? The skits on diplomacy and politics?
9. The use of Notre Dame with its football reputation? How well were they used? Grounds for the university's suing the film company? The skit on American football players, encountering the Middle East?
10. How humorous were the banquet scenes, the final football match? Purpose?
11. The purpose and achievement of the film?
