“What’s the matter with me? Have I gone insane? Is this a nightmare?”
Recently there have been women disappearing in London. The papers attribute it to a fiend they call the vampire. Thirty women have disappeared. The vampire is actually a mad scientist called Dr. Von Housen (Bela Lugosi). Von Housen thinks he is a vampire. His main ambition is to rule the world. To do that he needs to create an army of robots that are powered by uranium and are radio controlled. To create the robots he needs uranium. Lots of it.
Julia Loretti (Maria Mercedes) has just returned from South America. She has in her possession a chart showing the location of a large uranium mine. Von Housen has Julia kidnapped at the docks. Von Housen currently has only one test robot. He has the robot shipped to his hiding place in the country, a huge mansion complete with a laboratory where he can do his experiments. He has rented the place under the assumed name of Riley.
Unfortunately for Von Housen, a mix up sends his robot to the owner of a mom and pop store in London named Mother Riley (Arthur Lucan). Mother Riley has been expecting a crate herself as part of an inheritance. Her crate went to Von Housen. A copy of the shipping label in the crate tells Von Housen where his robot went. He fires up his radio controlled robot and has it return to his hideout. The robot also kidnaps Mother Riley and brings her along. From then on it’s slapstick and bad jokes all the way.
“Vampire Over London” in America, AKA “Mother Riley Meets The Vampire” in Britain, was released in 1952. It was produced and directed by John Gilling. It is a British comedy/horror movie. The film was re-cut and re-released in 1963 as “My Son The Vampire” for American audiences to promote a comedy record done by singing comedian Allan Sherman. The re-cut film included an introductory song by Sherman.
Bela made three films in England: "The Mystery of the Mary Celeste," (1935) "Dark Eyes of London," (1940) and "Mother Riley Meets the Vampire" (1951). All three had different titles for their American releases.
Lugosi had travelled to England to appear in a stage play of Dracula. There are rumors that the stage play failed and that Lugosi needed money to return to the US and that is why he appeared in “Vampire Over London”. This was later proven to be false. The stage play was a hit. Lugosi eventually left the play due to exhaustion. Lugosi spent 8 months in Britain and did over 200 performances of the play.
Lugosi was paid $5,000 for his role. The plot was supposedly taken from “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein”. This was the last of 16 Mother Riley films made by comedian Arthur Lucan.
I’m feeling pretty sorry for Bela Lugosi right about now. I can handle a lot of bad movies. But when it’s a comedy with an old man in drag singing and dancing, well, I kinda have to draw the line there. Fortunately he only sings one song. Unfortunately he is still in the rest of the movie.
As far as I’m concerned the movie is crap. The only good part is Lugosi. And he is great. I have always felt that he should have done a lot more comedic roles. Of course in good movies not in really bad movies. His comedic timing is exceptional. Why they had him as a pretend vampire was a mystery to me. The only reason I could think of was to play off Lugosi’s name as playing Dracula.
I don’t like the movie but if you are into this kind of comedy you may see it differently. I did like Lugosi and I did like the robot. Everything else was just noise to me.