By Eric Grigs | October 14, 2020

So when you hear the name Don Knotts, the first thing you think of is porn. No, wait, what?

Believe it or not, Mayberry’s beloved deputy sheriff and one-half of the Apple Dumpling Gang stars in a sex farce that cleverly skewers the loosening morality and changing cultural attitudes of the 1960s. Of course, this is no 1980s sex comedy a la American Pie, yet it never feels overly prudish about its subject matter either. Taking advantage of the time period which was transitioning to new ideas about sexual liberation, it still remains laugh-out-loud funny well over a half-century later.

A collection of lobby cards for the film.

The plot involves Knotts as Abner Audubon Peacock IV, a well respected small town everyman who is swindled out of running his low-selling bird-watching magazine The Peacock. A publisher with loose ties to organized crime finds himself in desperate need of a postal permit to continue mailing his girlie mags, so Knotts makes the perfect mark. It’s the type of setup ripe for wild misinterpretations between characters who could well inhabit a Doris Day and Rock Hudson movie, albeit a bit less squeaky-clean—but still never too naughty.

Don Knotts is given ample opportunity for plenty of hilarious wide-eyed takes when something challenges his straight-laced mindset—while still trying to maintain a veneer of coolness and hoping those around him won’t see through his charade. Although here Knotts gets to add another layer to that veneer, as Abner inadvertently becomes a not-disguised-at-all Hugh Hefner stand-in over the course of the unfolding screwball events spiraling out of his control. Anne Francis plays progressive Lisa LaMonica who cooks up his “love god” persona and soon becomes the real mastermind pulling all the strings. Bravo to the producers for giving us a fresh ending—well, at least I couldn’t predict exactly where her story would end up alongside Knotts, but it’s a good resolution that feels authentic to her liberated character and his more traditional one.

The public and most critics were not ready for Knotts to move away from G-rated fare into more adult territory. Granted, it’s social satire, but we’re not talking groundbreaking or shocking cinema for the time (Midnight Cowboy was released the same year)—regardless of how many movie theaters stamped “not suitable for children” on its posters. Far from today’s standards of what we consider adult themes, it teases viewers with “issues” like first amendment freedoms, but approaches them for laughs because making a point is not really the point. (The People vs. Larry Flint it ain’t.) Instead, it’s just one hell of a fun ride. Along the way, it’s a blast to watch writer-director Nat Hiken (The Phil Silvers Show) hit the gags, already several decades ahead of the Kardashian era in his understanding of how to lampoon the use of modern media to manipulate one’s public image. Sadly, he passed between the end of shooting and the film’s release. I wonder what he’d think of Twitter? No matter—there’s plenty of sixties mod fashion on display, the iconic Darlene Love performs the catchy ear-worm of a song “Mr. Peacock,” Vic Mizzy contributes a truly funky score, and of course lots of fish-out-of-water laughs add to the comedy proceedings.

Filmed on the Universal backlot, sharp-eyed Desperate Housewives fans will enjoy watching the cast perform scenes on what would eventually become Wisteria Lane (as well as other productions like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Leave It to Beaver). Like that show’s take on what actually lies underneath the purported family values of the suburbs, The Love God? is similarly caught in between two opposing realities. Occupying a spot on the crossroads of American cinema during the end of the 60s, where did a Don Knotts star vehicle and this type of comedy belong when most audiences had moved on to preferring movies that crossed lines rather than tip-toeing up to them? Answer: soon be exclusively cataloged under the “family” section of your local video store a decade later. This rated M (now PG-13!) film couldn’t possibly go far enough to overcome the reputation Knotts had cemented previously: his movies were safe entertainment for those with children in tow at the multiplex. Strangely, this movie is somehow exactly in character for him and simultaneously against type. That wholesome perception wouldn’t budge again until he was cast ten years later in 1979—in another sex farce, Three’s Company.

Don Knotts was mostly pigeonholed as a “Disney comedy” actor of sorts throughout his career. But thank god the ABC television producers knew what a riot he would be when he joined the Three’s Company cast for another turn poking fun of traditional moral values with some bawdy humor. Without Mr. Peacock, the world may have never known Abner’s direct descendant—the iconic leisure suit wearing love god of the following decade, Mr. Furley.

Eric Grigs is a pop culture writer, artist, and co-host of the Pop Trash Podcast.

The Love God? (1969)