Old Mother Riley's Jungle Treasure (1951, UK)

In this tale, Captain Morgan, the infamous pirate, has buried treasure on a Caribbean island, and left a map showing its location in a compartment in an elaborately carved bed. In the present day, Old Mother Riley and Kitty are working in an unsuccessful antiques business, and the bed has come down through the centuries, and is on sale there.

The ghost of Captain Morgan shows Mother Riley where the map is, but some shady crooks are on the trail as well. Mother Riley and her friends take a plane to the island to get the booty.

By 1951, the film-makers were milking an established formula, and the budget for the film must have been pretty low; look at the scenery in the Caribbean, for example. Mother Riley's antics continued to draw the crowds, but today they look crude and foolish. Arthur Lucan had built up a successful music hall act based on the character of Old Mother Riley, a cantankerous and objectionable old woman, whom some men in the audience could perhaps recognise as their mother-in-law. Kitty McShane played her daughter, but her limited acting ability didn't add much to the format.

Peter Butterworth was then 31, and appears as an airline steward, looking pretty much as he did 25 years later in the Carry On films.

HF September 2006

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