The Love God? (1969)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Perfect cast and a good story

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Don Knotts stars as Abner Adubon Peacock the IV, who owns a bird-watchers magazine with dwindling readers that gets purchased by an unscrupulous man(played by Edmond O' Brian) who converts it into an adult mens' magazine(like Playboy) Abner is devastated by this, but to placate him, he is fooled into believing that he is the ideal modern man by the fashion editor(played by Anne Francis) who finds herself falling for him, as the hoax grows out-of-control... Absolutely preposterous comedy doesn't have a believable moment in it, and isn't remotely funny, and too dumb to be in bad taste. Hideously dated, and helped kill Knott's solo film career. A total bust, best forgotten.

This film is a sex comedy and is good , decently funny, but I found the casting of Don Knotts strange,let face it sex and Don Knotts movies don't seem to go together. Certainly the premise makes sense he is not the sex symbol same as character in movie, but it just felt weird.Kinda of creepy.also my husband and i are debating I think I saw Clevon Little of Blazing Saddles fame in a brief role ( not credited ) my husband thinks I am wrong, towards the beginning he is one of the lawyers standing around I will have to do some net research and let you know.

This was a decent movie from start to finish. I thought the story, characters, and actors did an excellent job making this movie seem realistic. Don Knotts is as always the geeky skinny guy who seems like he'd be the last one picked to do what he does. He plays these characters the best. If you are a fan of Don Knotts, you will enjoy this, simply out of the amusement of seeing him play the super-stud character. The plot is excellent, and not boring, but the content isn't as funny as Don Knotts' other films. Definetely check it out though. It isn't as family oriented because of the content it conveys, but it is still a film that most would enjoy. I'd give it a 6.5 out of 10 rating.

Don Knotts got a lot of mileage out of his inept Barney Fife character which he played in a series of movies throughout the 1960s (he won four or five straight Emmys so you have to give him credit). Most of his movie rip-offs were forgettable but not "The Love God?" Then and now, the movie is a social satire and a commentary on public morals. I'm not sure that is exactly what Knotts intended but that is what results. Knotts is Abner Peacock, the publisher of Peacock's Magazine, a bird-watcher journal which is in bankruptcy. Osborn Trelaine comes to his rescue with capital to save the magazine. What Abner doesn't know, and doesn't find out until he returns from a bird expedition, is that Trelaine is a pornographer. As soon as he returns to America, Abner is arrested for obscenity. The trial that follows is hilarious as Knotts' famous lawyer lambasts him and tells the country how disgusted he is to be representing such a degenerate. But because he loves liberty, he has to do it. Abner is acquitted and now finds himself to be considered to be a Casanova by every woman in America. His lawyers, his family and the pornographers convince him that it is his patriotic duty to put out a filthy magazine and prove to the world how free a country the US is. "But I don't know the first thing about publishing filth!" he objects. "You're young! You can learn!" he's told. With the luscious Anne Francis as his editor Abner then becomes the front for the most popular sex magazine of all time. Trouble is, while America thinks he's bopping models three at a time, he's actually a virgin and intimidated by women (except the faithful Rose Ellen who waits to marry him.). The funniest sequence of the movie is a musical montage of Abner living the jet-set life and appearing at a string of nightclubs. His hilarious rendition of "Summer in the Meadow" ("by Eloise W. Fetlock") is also unforgettable. Don Knotts never made a better movie and the social commentary hasn't diminished one iota in the over 30 yrs since it was released.