Covers some of the same territory as The Seven Minutes. There's a short obscenity trial.
Don Knotts stars as Abner Audubon Peacock IV who publishes a failing birdwatching magazine. It is saved from bankruptcy by a pornographic magazine publisher (Edmond O'Brien) who wants it for its 4th Class Mailing Permit.
Abner becomes known as a pornographer. He's shunned by his community. He had been a scout leader. Now parents shield their children from him. He is about to commit suicide when a couple guys from an ACLU-like organization offer to defend him in court from obscenity charges.
My older brother and sister wanted to go to this in 1969, but our parents wouldn't let them because it was rated PG. In fairness to my parents, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was made the same year, was rated PG and had a nude scene and a teacher molesting a student. When Gone with the Wind was re-released in the '60s it got a G-rating and it was a bloody war movie with implied nudity, implied marital rape, slavery, prostitution, the horrible death of a horse, a man having his leg amputated without anesthesia and a dead body dragged across the floor leaving a long bloody smear, all in technicolor. Ratings had entirely different meanings back then.
According to Wikipedia, The Love God? is now rated PG-13.
Now that I've seen the movie, I can tell you my parents were right. I don't know why I found it so disturbing.
Don Knotts isn't the blowhard he is in his other movies. The Mafia has taken control of the magazine and he's forced to become a bizarre Hugh Hefner-like figurehead for the publication. He goes back to his old girlfriend waiting for him in their small town. Before they can marry, her father, a pastor, insists that he call a press conference and tell the world the truth, that he is a virgin. Knotts is horrified but sees no way out.
It was a failed attempt to put Don Knotts in a comedy aimed at adults. Sadly, the public didn't go for it. If it had, Knotts might have been the poor man's Woody Allen.
Free on Movieland.Tv and Amazon Prime.
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