MOTHER RILEY MEETS THE VAMPIRE (1952) *** Cross-dressing Arthur Lucan is pretty sure he can take Bela Lugosi, even in a special incarnation as mad scientist/vampire. But wait! It isn't a fair fight! Bela has a robot assistant!!! Aieeee!!! It gets even better than that, what with Lucan's posse that includes a giggling lunatic and what appears to be a defector from "The Beverly Hillbillies." Of course Scotland Yard is on the case in no time at all, but will they be in time to save poor María Mercedes from being tied to a bed before the bomb goes off? Why, you ask? Well, because Bela's after uranium, of course, just like Saddam Hussein, and he has just as much of it. John Gilling knows exactly what's funny about vampires, and Bela offers several immortal lines with all of the panache that anyone could dream of. Gilling also has more than a few directorial tricks up his sleeve (the cat and piano!), and plays them mercilessly before he forgets that they're up there. In fact as things go down the home stretch everyone throws everything that they've got into it, or maybe they're just throwing things out, or maybe there was an outbreak of crickets. Whatever the case, the demand for admiration couldn't be less heartfelt or much more deserved. I hope the gentleman gin jumper got his car back from those guys from behind the Iron Curtain. They were a menace, you know. But it was more likely the gin gentleman who distracted Old Mother Riley to the point that this was the last we heard from her. Naughty boy.
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