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.
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.