If You Knew Susie

Based on the title song of one of Eddie Cantor's biggest hits, If You Knew Susie has Joan Davis in the title role of Cantor's wife on screen. The two play a couple of old vaudevillians who are ready to settle down in their small town where the families have been there for generations.

But not only their show business background makes the folks in Brockford snub Cantor and Davis. Everybody else seems to have had a Revolutionary War Hero in the ancestry, but poor Eddie. Which makes Eddie start hitting the archives for something about his ancestor Jonathan Parker.

He hits a proverbial jackpot when he discovers that the First Continental Congress appropriated a sum to this ancestor which was never paid. That compound interest really compounds and if the debt is paid the Cantor/Davis family is Howard Hughes/Bill Gates type wealthy.

Which makes these old Vaudevillians instant celebrities. And they gain a manager of sorts in Allyn Joslyn who is a news reporter for a wire service. He sees many stories that can be had with their movements of all kinds. And when interest wanes, Joslyn creates a couple of stories.

The story line was a bit confusing, but you might not notice it especially toward the end with the frantic antics of Cantor and Davis. Allyn Joslyn has some good moments as well. I think that Joslyn's part might have originally been meant for Adolphe Menjou who played a few such madcap characters in some of his comedy roles. Still Joslyn was very good, grabbing the spotlight when he was on screen even from the leads.

This was Eddie Cantor's last starring film. He'd be concentrating now on radio and that new medium of television. And Joan Davis did a couple of years in an early TV comedy that I still remember, I Married Joan. Both of them went out on a good film and a funny one.