Thanks for the memories!

As Good As It Gets

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Suzanne Pleshette stars and looks great here. Lots of good character actors, including Michael Constantine. One thing I notice, like other 1960's movies, this one doesn't mind basing gags on the concept of pretty young women and lecherous older guys who would like to chase them.Taking the movie as a whole, it's worth watching once: for Suzanne, the European scenery, the sometimes funny scenes, and a few affecting ones. Murray Hamilton stands out as especially good in this movie. I bought this on DVD; to me, it is more of a catch-it-on-cable type movie, in terms of value.

This was a big studio attempt to tap into the counter-culture movement. It attempts to be satiric, ironic, quirky, and off-beat. And it succeeds much of the time. The direction, editing, and sound can be witty, playing with the subject matter, situations, and setting. The comedy doesn't always work, the pace drags in places, and the characters get tedious at times riding their respective hobby-horses. But there's a lot of fun on the way, and a decent love story between antipathies, played by Suzanne Pleshette, and Ian McShane. You'll also see a lot of faces more familiar to you from TV of the era and succeeding decades. In the end, the movie does manage not to be bound by conventions of Hollywood storytelling. To know what I mean, you'll have to watch it all the way through yourself. Just know some of these 60s counter-culture films worked and some didn't. Those that didn't usually had one foot in the production code era and one foot in the cultural revolution that had not yet hit the suburbs yet, with a script seeming to be at war with itself. This is one film that worked and did not have these problems.

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.

I've been waiting for years for this gem to come out on DVD. Now I have my own copy and I still love this film. One of the many reasons I love it is that the year it was released (1970) I took almost the same tour; we also hit Paris, France. It's quite accurate and I love the humor. You can't put American tourists in one category. They are as varied as all Americans are. Taking a speed tour of Europe can be exhausting, but oh, the memories. Most will return on a more relaxed itinerary. What a great cast too! I agreed with most ALL the above reviews save the negative ones. Pleshette's character was not snobby, nor a complainer. She was friendly to the other tourists. Although many complained, by the end of the film a good time was had by all the tourists. I would've enjoyed traveling with this cast of tourists, but not with anyone who thought them boorish. I highly recommend this terrific little classic to anyone, tourist or homebody.