Votez pour grand-mère Riley

Despite its age, this movie shows why the "Old Mother Riley" productions were so popular. The title character is very funny in speech and movements. The theme is that someone who can be dismissed as a idiotic old woman is actually a popular woman who has the support of her down to earth daughter and friends. That those who think of the welfare of others triumph over those who are only interested in themselves.

When Mother Riley finds out that her ex-boss plans to stand for parliament and pull down her and her neighbours houses, she decides to stand against him. At first, it is taken as a joke but the villain of the movie soon realises he has to resort to underhand methods to stop her.

F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre is wrong to suggest that the name Butcher's Film Service was a play on the Cockney rhyming slang phrase "butcher's hook." Butcher's Films was one of the earliest and longest-surviving British film production companies and distributors, founded by William Butcher and later taken over by his sons William and Fred. Beginning as a chemist in 1860, William Senior progressed to the manufacture of photographic goods, then lantern slides. He died 1904. His sons began film distribution around 1909. The last Butcher's release was Fantasm in 1978. Many Butcher's films are now on DVD on the Renown label. I'm writing about the fascinating history of Butcher's Films in the summer issue of "The Veteran". Postscript 2018: By the time I wrote the above review F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre had been dead for nearly a year. It's probable that his claims to have seen many lost films were untrue. Much of what he says in his IMDb reviews should be taken with a pinch of salt. He was, however, a prolific and talented sci fi writer.

Arthur Lucan and Kitty McShane toured the variety halls of pre-war Britain in a comedy act called "Come Over", in which Lucan (in drag) played an Irish washerwoman named Old Mother Riley, while McShane (Lucan's real-life wife) played Mother Riley's daughter Kitty. They parlayed these roles into a series of films, very popular in 1930s Britain and still shown today on bank-holiday television. Only the last film in the series ("Mother Riley Meets the Vampire", minus McShane) had played widely in America, due to the casting of Bela Lugosi as the villain.

The Old Mother Riley films aren't very funny. Lucan is totally unbelievable as a woman, and he speaks all his lines in a high-pitched falsetto which sounds neither female nor Irish. Kitty Riley (played by McShane) is supposed to be the most beautiful girl in town, so gorgeous that all the young men are always courting her. Not to be ungallant, but Kitty McShane isn't very pretty, and she's got enough nose for two Streisands. Whenever Old Mother Riley gets in trouble, she shouts her peculiar catchphrase "Mrs Ginocchio, S.O.S.!" (Mrs Ginocchio is Mother Riley's neighbour, often mentioned but never seen, like Jimmy Durante's "Mrs Calabash".)

"Old Mother Riley, M.P." is one of the better Lucan films, which isn't saying much. Mother Riley runs afoul of her local council, so she campaigns to get herself elected to Parliament. Torin Thatcher gives a good performance (too good for this film) as Kitty's sailor boyfriend who's planning to marry her.

There were weird touches of surrealism in all the Mother Riley films. The best scene in this movie occurs during Mother Riley's election campaign, when she calls on a household in her district. The house looks normal, but the husband and wife who live here are midgets. Then their son comes to the door, and he's nearly seven feet high.

American viewers might be surprised to notice an item in the credits of this movie: it was distributed by 'Butcher's Film Service'. A film service for meat-choppers? This corporate name was the producer's joke: "butcher's hook" is Cockney rhyming slang for "have a look". The producer hoped that cinema audiences would want to "have a butcher's" (look) at this movie. Some hope!

I'll give 2 points out of 10 to "Old Mother Riley, M.P."

Old Mother Riley loses her job as a washer woman, after a disagreement with the management, she finds herself contesting a seat at Westminster, fighting her campaign on a mandate of workers rights.

One of those films that you need to be in the mood for, and if you are, you'll chuckle the whole way through. It's quintessential British humour, with Mother Riley as the underdog, and her former employer playing the villain.

A couple of amusing scenes, and a few interesting moments. Almost a hundred years on, and we're still talking about social injustices, especially at the work place.

Arthur Lucanas always is wonderfully enthusiastic as Mother Riley, the performance is so over the top, it makes Mrs Brown look subtle.

That baby did not look happy during the rally, and you can understand why.

6/10.

The fantasy of telling one's boss where they can stick their job is obviously a perennial since it pops up again in this still timely piece of social history.

One wonders what the seven minutes cut on reissue during the war contained, since it already contains plenty of home truths about life in thirties Britain where Mother Riley's boss is also her landlord (whose "workers are slaves and his tenants will soon be outcasts"), which funds his political ambitions.

The familiar argument of public amenities versus foreign aid was obviously also as hot a topic eighty years ago as it is now...