Stylish but barely mediocre overall

not horrible nor great

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969)A complete throwaway, and delightful, entertainment, with a charming Suzanne Pleshette as the sporadic leading lady in a romantic comedy set all over Europe. As the tour bus glides its way through the usual hot spots, in a typical (to this day) whirlwind race through major capitals from London to Rome, we see a playful satire of down home American types out of their element. It has funny moments, and some good comic actors, but it's almost thrown together and the story, whatever its short laughs, is pretty thin stuff.But then, a lot of comedies have no desire to be great films, and don't even worry about plot so much as finding some way under heaven to get as many funny situations in an hour and a half as possible. Pleshette I think is meant to play a kind of simpler American Audrey Hepburn, and she really does have a spark and sincerity on screen that works. She falls in love with the tour guide, a sharply dressed British fellow who seems more 1963 than 1969 (picture John Lennon by 1969) played by Ian McShane, an appealing but easily caricatured type. The rest of the cast is only present for gags and one liners, including a few very cameo cameos that get a lot of attention but are hardly worth watching the film for.The one exception, though, is a complete run through of Donovan singing "Lord of the Reedy River" in his faint precious tenor, alone on his guitar, surrounded by a room full of strung out kids dressed in perfect hippie clothes, a poster of Che on the wall. The movie makers knew this was a small coup, Donovan being at the time still a famous remnant of the early folk and folk rock movement (and a famous part of the Bob Dylan tour of England in 1965). A crude youtube version (with subtitles) is here: http://youtu.be/7M4D2B18cz8. Another reviewer notes that this is a truly "retro" film and what they really mean is that this isn't retro at all but it's the real deal, 1969 in 1969, and is a kind of capsule of some characteristic aspects of the time. It's a frivolous version of those scenes, from the exaggerated Italian extended family in Venice to the dancing to Swiss traditional music, but it does show a common liberation of the time, including a painfully sexist amateur photographer who photographs girls in miniskirts in each and every country as a kind of countdown. Of course, the director makes the movie equally sexist in the process, gawking at each of the models (victims?) as it goes. Harmless fun for some, cheesy demeaning distraction for others, and typical of many 1960s movies either way.Overall it's fun and funny and a joyful film, rather upbeat in more ways than just the humor. It's not New Hollywood, there is no socially cutting edge here, and no filming innovations (aside from some playful fast edits). But it tours the viewer through some wonderful, if well known, parts of Western Europe and has some laughs. And it has a beautifully unexpected ending, very poignant after all. Thank you Suzanne Pleshette.

Though the nominal stars of If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium are Suzanne Pleshette and Ian McShane have a nice romantic fling in the film, the real entertainment value lies in the varied group of American tourists roaming the continent. If these are typical no wonder our image is so bad.Ian McShane plays the guide for our two week tour and Pleshette is traveling to Europe alone to get away for a bit and ponder the marriage proposal from good old reliable Frank Latimore. It takes a while, but she falls for tour guide McShane. He's however not a person to settle down, it's why he has the job he does.But the rest of the members of her tour are a grand collection of character players. Norman Fell loses wife Reva Rose to another tour of Japanese touring the continent where she makes the biggest contribution to American-Japanese friendship since MacArthur. Michael Constantine is interested in reliving the best time of his life which he spent in Europe during World War II. Marty Ingels with camera in hand is looking to get pictures of beautiful women from each country to show how he's scoring to his buddies. Best of all is Murray Hamilton and Pamela Britton. She wants to go to Europe for herself and to get daughter Hilarie Thompson's mind off boys, this was the Sixties you know. Hamilton goes kicking and screaming. And Hilarie finds American student Luke Halpin abroad and he's better than what she left in the states.Hamilton is great as the ultimate American Philistine. I could see coming out of his mouth a comment that William Frawley made on an I Love Lucy episode when the Ricardos and Mertzes are in Rome. Frawley was singularly unimpressed with the Colosseum, saying that Joe DiMaggio would hit 80 home runs a year in that band box of a ballpark. Stuff like that comes out of Hamilton regularly.In fact he has a very funny encounter with an Italian shoemaker in Rome, played by Vittorio DeSica. Language problems and all each eventually gets his message across.I hope in real life we don't get as many laughs as this crowd does. Less laughs would do wonders for our image.

An all-star cast of 1960s comedians embark on a guided tour to see 9 European countries in 18 days. A very attractive "pre-Bob" Suzanne Plechette is the focus of a young tour guide (and the film), who sees the successful American tourist as his ultimate amorous challenge. Through many very funny situations involving the colorful cast, the two leads eventually fall in love. At the end of the trip Suzanne must choose between champagne and caviar in her metropolitan US home or cheese with cheap wine with a sincere, but common man in Europe. What would Leona do?This lighthearted entertainment certainly reflects the times it was filmed in (1969). American tourists had rightfully earned a certain "reputation" regarding their adventures in Europe (including the affairs of American servicemen in WWII). I was put off more by the constant negative remarks from the Suzanne Plechette character. She acted like a total snob and alienated herself from the other tour members (and the audience) with her superior attitude. I think that not even Bob Newhart (as the bumbling psychiatrist) is man enough for this over-the-top emancipated "woman". This major flaw overshadows an otherwise very pleasant film.

I have no idea. But I know that I first saw that movie as a child, shortly after it came out, and never stopped loving it. I think the best word to describe the entire film is "colorful". The cast is, the characters are, the cinematography is, the script is. I bought a VHS copy a few years back and every 6 months or so, I just have to pop it in, jump into bed with my wife and a bowl of popcorn and enjoy it again. The movie hasn't aged well at all but as another reviewer said, it's a pure time capsule of 1969 and that in itself is a great positive attribute.