Old Mother Riley MP ** (1939, Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane) – Classic Movie Review 13,305

The daft 1939 British drag comedy film Old Mother Riley MP stars Arthur Lucan as Old Mother Riley and Kitty McShane as Kitty Riley in the third of the 15 Mother Riley films.

Director Oswald Mitchell’s daft 1939 British drag comedy film Old Mother Riley MP stars Arthur Lucan as Old Mother Riley and Kitty McShane as Kitty Riley. It is the third of the 15 Mother Riley films.

Arthur Lucan’s alter ego Old Mother Riley is sacked as a washer woman by the laundry owner, her landlord who plans to pull down the houses and the pub on her street, and decides to stand for Parliament as a corrupt MP. So Mother Riley takes to the soapbox in a parliamentary election and is elected to Parliament. She is made a cabinet minister –the Minister of Strange Affairs! – and recovers £50 million in foreign debts.

Much frantic farcical jollity is nicely stirred up in one of the better series entries.

It premiered in London on 15 August 1939 and went on UK general release on 20 January 1940.

Percival Mackey’s stock music is recycled from Old Mother Riley in Paris (1938).

Oswald Mitchell previously directed Old Mother Riley (1937) and Old Mother Riley in Paris (1938).

Old Mother Riley is the first of the 15-movie Old Mother Riley comedy series, which ran from 1937 until 1952 and Mother Riley Meets the Vampire, with Arthur Lucan in drag as the loud elderly Irish washerwoman and Lucan’s real-wife Kitty McShane confusingly cast as Riley’s daughter Kitty.

Old Mother Riley MP is directed by Oswald Mitchell, runs 77 minutes, is made by Hope-Bell, is released by Butcher’s Film Service, is written by Con West (story and scenario) and Oswald Mitchell (story), is shot in black and white by Geoffrey Faithfull and James Wilson, is produced by F W Baker, and scored by Percival Mackey (composer stock music), with Art Direction by R Holmes Paul.

The cast are Arthur Lucan as Old Mother Riley, Kitty McShane as Kitty Riley, Barbara Everest, Edith Sharpe, Torin Thatcher as Jack Nelson, Henry B Longhurst as Henry Wicker, Patrick Ludlow as Archie, Dennis Wyndham as Emperor of Rocavia, Cynthia Stock as The Supervisor, Rex Alderman as Littleman, and Kenneth Henry as Brownlow.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,305

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