The Love God

Ornithologist Abner Audubon Peacock (Don Knotts) sells his bird-watching journal to slick charlatan Osborn Tremain (Edmond OBrien), who promptly converts it into a girlie magazine. When an obscenity lawsuit transforms the virginal Peacock into an unlikely hero to the hip and liberated, Tremain and co-editor Lisa LaMonica (Anne Francis) try to capitalize on Peacocks newfound fame as a libertine, to the dismay of his equally chaste longtime sweetheart, Rose Ellen (Maggie Peterson).

Contents

• Plot
• Similar Movies
• Cast and characters
• References

The Love God? is a 1969 Universal Pictures feature film starring Don Knotts and film was written and directed by Nat Hiken, who died after it was shot but before it was released in theaters. The film marks a change of pace for Knotts, who up to then, had appeared in G-rated family comedies. The Love God? was an attempt to integrate Knotts into the type of adult-related films that dominated the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Abner Peacock's (Knotts) beloved bird-watcher's magazine, "The Peacock," is in financial crisis. Desperate to stay afloat, Abner takes on new partners who have an agenda of the own: to publish a sexy gentleman's magazine. Before he can stop them, the first issue sells over 40 million copies, and Abner becomes the unwilling spokesman for First Amendment rights. Swept up in adulation, the unwitting playboy quickly begins settling into the swinging bachelor lifestyle in this quirky comedy featuring the loveable actor at his best.