I'd always be thought Old Mother Riley belonged in a circus, but here she actually owns one in this, the final feature film directed by veteran director of Dickensian silents Thomas Bentley.
It's got better production values and slightly more pathos than most of Arthur Lucan's other Old Mother Riley films, as usual attractively shot by "Camera Man" (as he's billed in the credits) James Wilson, with Hitchcock veteran John Longden as leading man, and a formidable if under-used villain in Roy Emerton.
An entirely new back story has been devised for the old girl. Having already told us in a previous film her first name was Gertrude, she even has a new christian name as former stage star Maggie Reilly (aka "Maggie O'Hara") now "scrubbing boards that I once tread upon"; while Kitty is this time her long-lost daughter she's reunited with as part of the story.
Various actual circus acts also appear, of whom a young lady tap-dancing in her scanties particularly impressed both the two reviewers who preceded me.
It's got better production values and slightly more pathos than most of Arthur Lucan's other Old Mother Riley films, as usual attractively shot by "Camera Man" (as he's billed in the credits) James Wilson, with Hitchcock veteran John Longden as leading man, and a formidable if under-used villain in Roy Emerton.
An entirely new back story has been devised for the old girl. Having already told us in a previous film her first name was Gertrude, she even has a new christian name as former stage star Maggie Reilly (aka "Maggie O'Hara") now "scrubbing boards that I once tread upon"; while Kitty is this time her long-lost daughter she's reunited with as part of the story.
Various actual circus acts also appear, of whom a young lady tap-dancing in her scanties particularly impressed both the two reviewers who preceded me.