An absurdist romp that tries mightily to spoof the cold war, US-Arab relations, football, religion, and about a thousand other things. It's not altogether successful, but it's also far from being dull. Shirley MacLaine is a reporter who goes undercover to do a story on harem life in a fictional middle eastern country ruled by kooky Peter Ustinov. Ustinov's son has recently been cut from the Notre Dame football team. MacLaine runs into pilot Richard Crenna (a one-time football player known as wrong way Goldfarb). Now a US spy, Crenna's plane crashes in the same country. Shenanegans ensue as Ustinov decides to start a football team to take on the fighting Irish. Crenna is enlisted to coach, setting off an international incident. The actors are all out of control, with MacLaine screaming her dialog and Ustinov acting more like the village idiot than an Arabian sultan. The supporting cast consists of virtually every comic actor working in the mid 60s: Harry Morgan, Jim Backus, Fred Clark, Richard Deacon, Jackie Coogan, Wilfred Hyde White. Directed, with his usually heavy hand, by J. Lee Thompson.
