He is held captive, but the country's leader is informed of his past career as a star of college football.

He arranges an exhibition football match between his country's university team and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, using the captive aviator for leverage.

Writer William Peter Blatty's tale concerns John "Wrong-Way" Goldfarb, a former college football star who once ran 95 yards for a touchdown in the wrong direction.

The King blackmails the U.S. Department of State into arranging an exhibition football game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and his own team from Fawz University.

"[4] In September 1963, Hedda Hopper reported Arthur Jacbos and J. Lee Thompson were reading the book.

[13] Thompson had been unable to find a male star, and eventually went with Richard Crenna, then best known for his work on The Real McCoys.

[5] Fox expected the film to open on Christmas Day 1964, however in early December the University of Notre Dame filed a suit against Fox and the publishers of the book to stop the movie and recall the novel saying both did "immeasurable damage" to the school's reputation, particularly the final football sequence.

[20] Fox tried to get a stay of the injunction but was unsuccessful – they offered the 200 theatres that was going to show John Goldfarb another film The Pleasure Seekers.

[24] The following month the five-judge appellate court unanimously reversed the original judge's decision – Fox had won.

[25][26] The case went to the Court of Appeals who upheld Fox's victory 4–2, enabling the studio to release the film.

[30] Later, Henny and Jim Backus wrote a travel book called What Are You Doing After the Orgy?, the title taken from one of his lines in the film.

Blatty would later model two characters in his 1970 bestselling novel The Exorcist on people involved in making John Goldfarb.