Old Mother Riley Detective

It represented a promotion of sorts from assistant and technical advisor on three previous Old Mother Riley films to actually directing British cinema's third biggest box office attraction of 1942, but for Lance Comfort it was fortunately merely a springboard to far far better things.

Forgetting the centuries old antipathy of the Irish to the English (along with her accent much of the time) Mother Riley does her bit for the war effort by going undercover to foil a gang of black marketeers (while talking so much Arthur Lucan actually gets as an Additional Dialogue credit).

The verbal sparring between mother & daughter when "Mrs Riley's little daughter" Kitty (as usual dressed like Baby Jane Hudson) when the garrulous old crone embarrasses her in an upmarket restaurant carries an edge that probably derives from the Lucans' well-known real-life propensity for rowing in public; while her increasingly frequent asides to the camera are also acquiring a sinister edge.