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THE LATER YEARS
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Films of the 30's, 40's & 50's
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THE FILMS
(cont.)
Old Mother Riley Meets The Vampire (1952) (cont.) Below are edited extracts from a revealing article - 'My Son The Vampire : What a "drag" for Dracula' by Tom Weaver, which appears on The Astounding B-Monster website. The article features an in-depth interview with Richard Gordon, a New York-based film distributor and a friend of Bela Lugosi.........
Bela Lugosi with a scary big cigar Tom Weaver : "How did Lucan behave on the set?" Richard Gordon : "Arthur Lucan behaved on the set exactly like he behaved in the film. He became Mother Riley and never stepped out of character. It was rather like Dr. Jekyll when he turned into Mr. Hyde -- but with less lethal results! The only thing Lugosi complained about was an old complaint of his, one that I came across on this and other occasions: Arthur Lucan had this habit of ad-libbing and throwing extra things into the script, extra situations. This very much confused Lugosi, because Lugosi belonged to that era of professional actors who knew their script word-by-word before they appeared on the set. And if anything happened to differentiate it, especially at that time of his life, Lugosi would be thrown off-balance and he'd get confused. Particularly as he was also hard of hearing. So he wasn't happy with the ad-libbing. And he also felt that the Mother Riley character made him in the film more ridiculous than he would have liked to appear, by all the extra schtick that Arthur Lucan put into it. But apart from that, he was quite contented, and I think he was very relieved that he was working. And of course he also believed (as I did) that the picture would become salable in the United States and would help his career. I don't remember that there were any problems during the production."
Film still from Old Mother Riley Meets The Vampire (1952)
Tom Weaver : "Did
you talk to Lucan?" Richard Gordon : "Well, I talked to Lucan a little bit, but Lucan was such a crazy character. I think he looked on me as some sort of "American financier," or as the man who was going to make Old Mother Riley famous in America. And he sort of put on a big act for me, and I never really got to talk to him where I felt he was being himself. So, until I read a recent book called The Life Stories of Lucan and McShane [about Arthur Lucan and his actress-wife Kitty McShane], I never had any knowledge of his background or of his unhappiness and his drinking and so on." Tom Weaver : "Lucan's real-life wife Kitty McShane played his daughter Kitty in every Mother Riley movie except Meets the Vampire -- they had recently split." Richard Gordon : "I know that George Minter, at Lucan's request, banned her from the studio during the shooting, 'cause Lucan didn't want her around harassing him in her usual manner. I never met her or saw her, but I heard all these stories about her. From other people -- Lucan never said anything. But from other people, and from George Minter, I heard the stories." Tom Weaver : "She was supposedly hell on wheels." Richard Gordon : "They thought she'd come on and harass Lucan, and she'd probably either harass or play up to Bela, who knows? That wouldn't have worked -- especially with Lillian [Lugosi's wife] around" [laughs]! Tom Weaver : "Do you remember what parts of the movie you saw shot? I'm assuming, since you saw Lucan and Lugosi on the set, it was the scenes at Lugosi's house from the end of the movie." Richard Gordon : "I can't recall. I was there on the first day of shooting, when everybody was introduced to everybody -- that was when I met Lucan. The film was shot, incidentally, at Nettlefold Studios, one of Britain's oldest studios. It was used mostly by independent filmmakers and companies that could not afford renting space at the major studios like Pinewood, Shepperton and Elstree. Later it was renamed Walton Studios, and we shot my pictures The Haunted Strangler and Fiend Without a Face [both 1958] there." |
Old Mother Riley with Bela Lugosi (Old Mother Riley Meets The Vampire (1952)) Tom Weaver : "The movie goes out of its way to point out that Lugosi's character is not a vampire, just a crazy scientist who thinks he is. They really pound that point home." Richard Gordon : "I think, more than anything else, they wanted to be sure that they were making a picture that would get a "U" Certificate from the British Board of Film Censors and that they wouldn't have any problem selling it to the kids. A "U" Certificate meant that children were allowed to go and see the film alone; an "A" Certificate would have restricted them from seeing it unless accompanied by an adult. Mother Riley had a big "family following," and they were afraid that if they put a supernatural element into it and made Lugosi a character like Dracula, they would have trouble with the censor board and they wouldn't get the rating they wanted. All the Old Mother Riley pictures had "U" certificates; that was practically a pre-condition of selling them to the circuits." Tom Weaver : "As you watched the picture being made, did you think it would be salable in America?" Richard Gordon : "No -- in fact, I told George Minter, "I don't think I'm going to be able to sell a picture in America called Mother Riley Meets the Vampire, even with Lugosi in it," because I had tried releasing a couple of other Mother Rileys earlier and it was a total disaster. One, Old Mother Riley's New Venture [1949], I retitled A Wild Irish Night [laughs], trying to sell it as an Irish picture as there always was a big audience in this country for pictures with an Irish background, because of the Irish population. We opened it in New York City at the 55th Street Playhouse (which no longer exists) and it was a disaster. So, as they were making Mother Riley Meets the Vampire, I came up with the title Vampire Over London, and George agreed that for the United States he would deliver it retitled Vampire Over London. That's how that title came about." Tom Weaver : "How popular were the Mother Riley movies in England?" Richard Gordon : They were originally enormously popular. They always made their major money in the north of England and in the industrial cities -- not so much in London. But they were tremendously popular and financially successful. At the time when George Minter took over the series, the popularity was beginning to go down. I think if Mother Riley Meets the Vampire had been a bigger success, Minter might have made another Mother Riley picture. But they had pretty much come to the end of their career. Film still from Old Mother Riley Meets The Vampire (1952)
Tom Weaver : "Even the
Lugosi name didn't help the last one enough?" Richard Gordon : "No. The fact that Kitty McShane wasn't
in it may have been partly responsible for [the waning interest],
because it was always Mother Riley and her daughter Kitty -- they were
very popular as a combination. This may be an extreme example, but it's
rather like when Oliver Hardy did a couple of pictures without Stan
Laurel towards the end of his career and it never worked, because people
were too used to seeing them as a team. Maybe that had something to do
with it." Film poster from My Son The Vampire (1952)
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