Old Mother Riley *** (1937, Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane, Barbara Everest) – Classic Movie Review 10,780

Director Oswald Mitchell’s 1937 British black and white comedy Old Mother Riley is the first of the 15-movie Old Mother Riley comedy series, which ran until 1952 and Old 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.

Music-hall star Lucan is funny with his broad, but gentle performance in this classic comedy character, happily never once suggesting that he is really a woman or that he wants to humiliate women through his comedy.

Also in the cast are Barbara Everest as Mrs Briggs, Patrick Ludlow as Edwin Briggs, J Hubert Leslie as Captain Lawson, Edith Sharpe as Matilda Lawson, Syd Crossley as Butler, Edgar Driver as Bill Jones, Dorothy Vernon as Aggie Sparks, Charles Carson, Charles Paton, Charles Sewell, G H Mulcaster, Zoe Wynn, Zoe Wynn and Balliol & Tiller.

Writers John Argyle (original story) and Con West (screenplay) concoct a plot where Mother Riley and her daughter Kitty try to stop disinherited relatives’ plans to overturn the terms of a will where a wealthy match magnate leaves his fortune to his family on condition that they take in the first person they see selling his matches. Enter Old Mother Riley, daughter Kitty and comic chaos.

The cheaply made, very profitable film was based on Lucan and McShane’s music hall sketch The Matchseller. It cost £2,000 and took six weeks to shoot. It was a hit and Old Mother Riley in Paris soon followed.

Old Mother Riley is directed by Oswald Mitchell, runs 75 minutes, is made by Hope-Bell Film Productions and Butcher’s Film Service, is released by Butcher’s Film Service (1937) (UK), is written by Con West, based on an original story by John Argyle, is shot in black and white by Jack Parker, is produced by Norman Hope-Bell, is scored by Horace Sheldon (musical director) and designed by Frank Carter.

It is made at Stoll Studios, Cricklewood, London.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,780

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