Main Cast: Suzanne Pleshette, Ian McShane, Mildred Natwick, Murray Hamilton, Sandy Baron
Release Year: 1969
Country: US
Run Time: 99 minutes
MPAA Rating: G
Plot
A mid-1960s TV documentary special (and a New Yorker cartoon before that) was the inspiration for If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium. The film is a likeable satire of "packaged" European tours, where the nonplused tourists are expected to rush from one landmark to another in a breathless 18 days. Ian McShane stars as the amorous tour guide, with Suzanne Pleshette as the American department store buyer he falls for; their romance ends when Pleshette decides that the supposedly worldly McShane is too immature for her. An all-star cast, including Murray Hamilton, Peggy Cass, Pamela Britton, Marty Ingels, John Cassavetes and Vittorio De Sica, pops up in comic cameo roles. Our favorite bit: an American and German tourist, simultaneously regaling their respective wives with wildly divergent accounts of the same wartime confrontation. If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium was reworked in 1987 as a made-for-TV movie, cleverly title If It's Tuesday, It Still Must be Belgium. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Rarely has a title been better matched to a movie than in the case of the innocuous If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium. That name really does let viewers know what they're in for: a light, slightly farcical, totally unchallenging travelogue-cum-comedy. Anyone looking for a film that will offer insight, sparkling wit, or a contained, well-thought-out plot with deeply etched characters knows automatically to look elsewhere. This isn't to say that Tuesday isn't entertaining. After all, it has a tremendous cast of character actors, each of whom has at least a moment or two to shine; some yummy on-location shots; and a pair of attractive leads to go through the motions of a "should they or shouldn't they" romance. It even pulls in such unlikely stars as Vittorio De Sica, Joan Collins, Donovan, and John Cassavetes for some peppy cameos. If Suzanne Pleshette and Ian McShane can't quite pull off their story, it's not for want of trying; they do very well with standard-issue parts that really exist only to provide what little dramatic conflict there is to the film. Much better served are such delightful performers as Peggy Cass, Mildred Natwick, Reva Rose, and Michael Constantine. Breezy, dated, and totally inconsequential, Tuesday is a good popcorn movie -- not especially nutritious, but fun to ingest. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Marc Frederix - Art Director, Patrick O'Brien - First Assistant Director, Mel Stuart - Director, David Saxon - Editor, David L. Wolper - Executive Producer, Donovan - Composer (Music Score), Walter Scharf - Composer (Music Score), Donovan - Songwriter, Vittorio Biseo - Makeup, Ron Berkeley - Makeup, Vilis Lapenieks - Cinematographer, Fritz Roland - Cinematographer, David L. Wolper - Producer, Stan Margulies - Producer, David Shaw - Screen Story, David Shaw - Screenwriter
The title, also used by a 1965 documentary on CBS television that filmed one such tour, was taken from a magazine cartoon caption, humorously depicting the whirlwind nature of European tour schedules, which formed the premise of the film's plot.
The film was remade in 1987 as a made-for-TV movie titled If It's Tuesday, It Still Must Be Belgium.
