IF YOU KNEW SUSIE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 499, 14 January 1949, Page 18

IF YOU KNEW SUSIE

| DDIE CANTOR, the almost forgotten star of such films of the early thirties as Roman Scandals and Whoopee, makes a brief return to the screen in If You Knew Susie. It is always interesting to see a screen comedian of past years attempt a come-back (if the word may be permitted here), and in this instance one main conclusion can be drawn. This is that although Cantorthe pop-eyed, bird-like little man, whose sweet sentimental songs and ineffectual attempts to make a go of things, win the sympathy as well as the laughter of the audience-has remained basically the same, he has also suffered with the times. In other words, his particular brand of humour has become a little dated, and the very fact that he hasn’t changed prevents him from being the draw card now that he ohce was. But that doesn’t mean Jf You Knew Susie isn’t good entertainment. It is. The laughs are plentiful enough, and there are many good lines, puns, and a general emphasis on verbal tricks which proves that Cantor has learnt a thing or two from radio. The songs and dances are in good vaudeville style, and not too frequent, while the plot is just about what one would expectlittle Sam Parker comes into a fortune and then loses it again but proves he’s as good as the rest of us in doing so. Joan Davis (Sam’s wife Susie) gets her quota of laughs too, and the amount of comedy, which she can make out of such an everyday operation as thread.ing a needle is well worth watching. The film is like that-rather homespun, getting most of its effects without undue striving, and produced (by Cantor himself) with skilful showmanship on apparently a small budget. If it does not aim very high, it does achieve what it sets out to do and that is to give everyone a laugh.