Decades before Brendan O'Carroll put on a frock to play an Irish matriarch in the abysmal sitcom Mrs. Brown's Boys, Arthur Lucan donned drag to play Irish washerwoman Old Mother Riley, this being the final outing for his inexplicably popular character (there are seventeen Old Mother Riley films in total!).
This time, Mother Riley comes up against a criminal gang led by blood-drinking scientist Professor Von Housen AKA The Vampire (Bela Lugosi, slumming it so that he can pay for a ticket back to the U. S.), who is planning to take over the world with an army of robots, the first of which has mistakenly been sent to the old woman's grocery store. Much craziness ensues, as The Vampire orders his metal man to abduct Mother Riley, and Von Housen's plucky housemaid Tilly (Dora Bryan) tries to find out what her boss is up to.
The film is a laugh-free disaster of colossal proportions from start to finish, Lucan proving thoroughly irritating throughout, gesticulating wildly and screeching dreadfully unfunny one-liners. He also performs a totally forgettable song and dance number with a little help from Carry On regular Hattie Jacques. Much of the physical comedy is accompanied by embarrassingly bad comical sound effects - a slide whistle gets a lot of use- and several scenes are sped up or reversed for comic effect. It's hard to believe that the film was directed by John Gilling, who would give us the excellent The Flesh & The Fiends and Plague of the Zombies - I guess we all have to start somewhere.
This time, Mother Riley comes up against a criminal gang led by blood-drinking scientist Professor Von Housen AKA The Vampire (Bela Lugosi, slumming it so that he can pay for a ticket back to the U. S.), who is planning to take over the world with an army of robots, the first of which has mistakenly been sent to the old woman's grocery store. Much craziness ensues, as The Vampire orders his metal man to abduct Mother Riley, and Von Housen's plucky housemaid Tilly (Dora Bryan) tries to find out what her boss is up to.
The film is a laugh-free disaster of colossal proportions from start to finish, Lucan proving thoroughly irritating throughout, gesticulating wildly and screeching dreadfully unfunny one-liners. He also performs a totally forgettable song and dance number with a little help from Carry On regular Hattie Jacques. Much of the physical comedy is accompanied by embarrassingly bad comical sound effects - a slide whistle gets a lot of use- and several scenes are sped up or reversed for comic effect. It's hard to believe that the film was directed by John Gilling, who would give us the excellent The Flesh & The Fiends and Plague of the Zombies - I guess we all have to start somewhere.