Main Cast: Don Knotts, Anne Francis, Edmond O'Brien, James Gregory, Maureen Arthur
Release Year: 1969
Country: US
Run Time: 101 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
In this uneven comedy, Abner (Don Knotts) is the editor of a bird-watching magazine who is the victim of a hostile corporate takeover by Osborn Tremaine (Edmond O'Brien). When Abner returns from a bird-watching excursion to Brazil, he finds his publication has been purchased for the fourth-class mailing permit. Osborn turns the publication into a girlie magazine and puts his wife Elanor (Maureen Arthur) on the front cover. Still listed as an editor, Abner becomes The Love God as the public perceives him as a Hugh Hefner-like character, epitomizing the life of a swinging bachelor playboy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
Maggie Peterson - Rose Ellen; Jesslyn Fax - Miss Love; Jacques Aubuchon - Carter Fenton; Marjorie Bennett - Miss Pickering; Jim Boles - Amos Peacock; Ruth McDevitt - Miss Keezy; B.S. Pully - J. Charles Twilight; Carla Borelli - Erica Lane; Willis B. Bouchey - Judge Claypool; Herbie Faye - Lester Timkin; Bob Hastings - Shrader; John Hubbard - Craig Frazier; Robert Lieb - Rayfield; Larry McCormick - Rich; Johnny Seven - Petey; Herbert Voland - Attorney General Fred Snow; James Westerfield - Rev. Wikerson; Joseph Perry - Big Joe; Roy Stuart - Joe Merkel; Jim Begg - Hotchkiss
Credit
Alexander Golitzen - Art Director, George Patrick - Art Director, Wilda Taylor - Choreography, Helen Colvig - Costume Designer, Phil Bowles - First Assistant Director, Nat Hiken - Director, Sam E. Waxman - Editor, Vic Mizzy - Composer (Music Score), Bud Westmore - Makeup, William Margulies - Cinematographer, Edward J. Montagne Jr. - Producer, Marvin March - Set Designer, John McCarthy - Set Designer, Waldon O. Watson - Sound/Sound Designer, Frank H. Wilkinson - Sound/Sound Designer, Nat Hiken - Screenwriter
Abner Peacock's beloved bird-watcher's magazine, "The Peacock," is in financial crisis. Desperate to stay afloat, Abner takes on a new partner, Osborn Tremain (Edmond O'Brien) who has an agenda of the own: to publish a sexy gentleman's magazine, which he can only do by taking over Abner's, since he has been convicted too often of sending obscene material through the mails. Before the hapless bird-watcher can stop the Tremains, 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 what some have described as a quirky comedy, but what others have described as a remarkably precognitive satire,[citation needed] featuring the loveable actor at his best.
