Mother Riley Meets the Vampire [Vampire Over London] ** (1952, Arthur Lucan, Bela Lugosi, Dora Bryan) – Classic Movie Review 5,645

Arthur Lucan puts on his drag glad-rags for the final time in the 1952 British comedy horror film Mother Riley Meets the Vampire, the 15th and last film in the Mother Riley series of comedies. Lucan’s co-stars are Bela Lugosi and Dora Bryan.

Producer-director John Gilling’s silly but harmless 1952 British comedy horror film Mother Riley Meets the Vampire [Vampire Over London] stars Arthur Lucan, who puts on his drag glad-rags for the final time as Old Mother Riley in this 15th and last film in the Mother Riley series of comedies.

With his regular partner Kitty McShane notably absent for the only time in the series, Lucan’s co-stars are Bela Lugosi and Dora Bryan.

Val Valentine’s junior-league screenplay does its best to provide simple slapstick laughs, as its old lady heroine Riley battles to thwart evil Vampire Von Housen (Bela Lugosi) and his rotten radar-controlled robot.

The Vampire has come to England to complete his experiments to control the world, but the robot he ordered is delivered by mistake to Mother Riley. The Vampire uses his radar control to transport the robot and Mother Riley to his side.

It is not really very funny, more just a bit sad to see Lugosi given such crass material. But Lucan carries on regardless and the vintage comedy star support cast (including Dora Bryan, Richard Wattis, Hattie Jacques, Graham Moffatt, John le Mesurier, Ian Wilson and Dandy Nichols) provides a slight compensation. It is good that Moffatt turns up as a yokel, Wattis is a copper (P C Freddie) and Wilson is the butler (Hitchcock!).

Poor Bela! He made this while he was in England in 1951 to play a six-month tour of Dracula, which started his American career in 1927 when he appeared as Count Dracula in the Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel. He played other vampires in Mark of the Vampire (1935), The Return of the Vampire (1943) following Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the only two times he played Dracula in a feature (though made a gag cameo as Dracula in a 1933 Hollywood on Parade short).

Also in the cast are Philip Leaver, Marîa Mercedes, Roderick Lovell, David Hurst, Judith Furse, George Benson, Bill Shine, David Hannaford, Charles Lloyd Pack, Cyril Smith, Arthur Brander, Peter Bathurst, Tom Macaulay and Laurence Naismith.

Mother Riley Meets the Vampire [Vampire Over London] is directed by John Gilling, is made by Fernwood Films Ltd Productions at Nettlefold Studios, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, is released by Renown, is shot in black and white by Stan Pavey, is produced by John Gilling, is scored by Linda Southworth, and is designed by Bernard Robinson.

It is the last film of Lucan, who made 17 movies, all as Mother Riley. Arthur Lucan was appearing in Dublin when he met and married the 16-year-old Kitty McShane in 1913. Buy by 1951, Lucan (Arthur Towle) and his wife and co-star Kitty McShane had separated and divorced, and she does not appear in Mother Riley Meets the Vampire, though he continued to support her. He was battling a large tax debt in 1954 when he unexpectedly collapsed and died in a Yorkshire theatre, the Tivoli Theatre, Hull, before his stage show on 17 May 1954, aged 68. Lucan’s understudy Roy Rolland took over the role of Old Mother Riley, performing with McShane until her death in 1964.

The Mother Riley series started in 1937 with Old Mother Riley.

It is also known as Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire, or Vampire Over London (US title), and also My Son the Vampire, the title of a recut American version released in 1963 and featuring an introductory segment with a song by US comedian Allen Sherman.

It follows Old Mother Riley’s Jungle Treasure (1951).

Arthur Lucan filmography

Stars on Parade (1936), Old Mother Riley (1937), Kathleen Mavourneen (1937), Old Mother Riley in Paris (1938), Old Mother Riley, MP (1940), Old Mother Riley Joins Up (1940), Old Mother Riley in Society (1940), Old Mother Riley’s Circus (and writer, 1941), Old Mother Riley in Business (1941), Old Mother Riley’s Ghosts (and writer, 1941), Old Mother Riley Overseas (and writer, 1943), Old Mother Riley Detective (and writer, 1943), Old Mother Riley at Home (1945), Old Mother Riley’s New Venture (1949), Old Mother Riley Headmistress (1950), Old Mother Riley’s Jungle Treasure (1951), and Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952).

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