Movie Quote of the Day (Don Knotts, on His Unusual Curse)

Abner Audubon Peacock [played by Don Knotts]: “I am cursed with an abnormal sexual magnetism for women."— The Love God? (1969), written and directed by Nat Hiken

I was channel-surfing this weekend when I came across this movie, a late-Sixties satire of the sexual revolution. As you might expect from his character’s middle name, Don Knotts plays the editor of a low-circulation ornithology magazine that, through complications not worth getting into here, ends up transformed into a Hugh Hefner-style risqué publication.

Just the premise of this movie led to an “M” rating for “mature audiences”—enough to doom the box office of this late entry in the short series of films made by the post-Andy Griffith Show Knotts. Nowadays, nobody would pay it the least mind.

When I heard the above quote from the movie, I burst out laughing, especially when Knotts said it in conjunction with his unique physiognomy, as described in Christopher Smith’s 2009 Los Angeles Times article:

“His high forehead, perched above a worried, wrinkly brow, set off his trademark googly eyes, ever-ready to pop out in alarm at whatever misfortune came his way. Below the eyes, his recessed chin tapered into a longish neck that highlighted a bulgy Adam’s apple that Knotts worked up and down in synchronized tandem with petrified double-takes or facial tremors. Out of his mouth came a quavery, yet squalling tenor voice, shrilly sounding in disbelief at the latest unfair turn of events that threatened his well being.”