Old Mother Riley, Headmistress – 1950 | 75 mins | Comedy | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Slapstick comedy starring Arthur Lucan and wife Kitty McShane. In this 13th and perhaps weakest addition to the Mother Riley series, Old Mother Riley becomes the headmistress of a girls’ school.

Irish washerwoman Mother Riley appears to be facing dismissal from the Black and White laundry, when a lawyer arrives to inform her that she has inherited the business. Another member of the family is not so lucky on the employment front, Mother Riley’s daughter, Kitty (Kitty McShane), is sacked from St Mildred’s School for Young Ladies where she taught the Luton Girls’ Choir due to the meddling of a French teacher Mlle. Leblanc (Jenny Mathot).

Sharp-tongued Old Mother Riley heads to the school to protest and discovers the school is for sale – so she promptly mortgages the laundry and buys the school; reinstating Kitty as the choir leader. It transpires that Mademoiselle Leblanc is part of a property swindle involving a group of investors who know a railroad plan to build a line directly through the school, so they plan to buy the land, and then sell it on for a massive profit. When Mother Riley refuses to sell, the swindlers decide to force her hand by committing arson and burning down the school.