According to producer Richard Gordon, Bela Lugosi had been on a tour of England in "Dracula", when the production abruptly ended because the producers declared bankruptcy and absconded without paying anyone. Lugosi found himself stranded in London, with no money and no way to get back to the US. Gordon, a friend of Lugosi's who was based in England, heard about his plight and arranged for him to appear in this, the latest--and, as it turned out, the last--in the "Old Mother Riley" series of comedies, for which he was paid $5,000.
Retitled "My Son, the Vampire" for its 1963 American release (seven years after Bela Lugosi's death) to cash in on the success of Allan Sherman's album, "My Son, the Folksinger."
After this film's completion, the costume of the Vampire's robot was put on display in the foyer of a Birmingham cinema. Years later, the costume wound up in a private collection in England for 20 years, before it was auctioned (minus the glass dome on its head) and sold for £1,680 at Bonhams of London, on December of 2010.
According to a date shown printed on the masthead of the "London Evening News", the action of this film takes place in September of 1952.
This was the final "Old Mother Riley" film and the only one in which Arthur Lucan's longtime partner and wife, Kitty McShane, did not appear as Mrs Riley's daughter. Lucan and McShane had a very bitter separation in 1951.
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