old mother riley ( film )
old mother riley runs into a ghost who turns out to be an old pirate searching for buried treasure .
old mother riley and her daughter kitty stop the plans of some disinherited relatives .
the best old mother riley i' ve seen... for what that' s worth
old mother riley loses her laundry job and then battles her ex - boss in a parliamentary election .
appears as a man. he briefly appears as a crook who then disguises himself as old mother riley .
it was lucan and mcshane who gave jimmy clitheroe his big break, casting him in the 1939 old mother riley pantomime, ‘the old woman who lives in a shoe’, and giving him his first film part, a small role in their 1940 picture, ‘ old mother riley in society ’ .
there is an appreciation society dedicated to old mother riley, endorsed by arthur and kitty’s families. for information, contact :
much of the humour in the performance is derived from the fact that old mother riley is so obviously a man dressed up .
mother riley takes over a circus on the point of closing down, and makes it a success .
were a box office success. meanwhile, the theatre performances continued, along with a radio series. another sign of the character’s popularity was that old mother riley had her own comic strip in both ‘radio times’ and ‘film fun’ magazines .
not a great film and very low budget but with some knockabout shenanigans featuring spies and silliness. kitty has become engaged and her fiancé has been sent to paris which he is rather pleased about so he can get away from old mother riley. kitty and her mother go to paris to keep tabs on him and find out her fiancé has become involved in a spy ring. there are nice scenes of some entanglement in a night club between old mother riley and a latin dancer but apart from that it is too old fashioned .
nice boxed set this and first time in decades of film collecting i had seen the newly release film in the box which was ...
directed by john baxter for british national, and distributed by anglo - american, ‘old mother riley in society’ is the fifth film in the long running series. the first half of the picture follows the usual routine of boisterous slapstick; but in the second half it becomes somewhat sentimental, as mother riley - estranged from her daughter after kitty’s marriage - seeks to become reunited with her .
for all those with fond memories of the halcyon days of old mother riley, there' s a touring stage play about arthur lucan and bela lugosi making lucan' s last film, mrs riley meets the vampire. the cinema museum in london is staging the vampire and mrs riley on september 5th and 6th, 2014. come along, have a laugh. this is a play, based on real events surrounding the film, not a screening of the film. full details of the show are on - line at: urltoken
old mother riley (arthur lucan) and kitty riley (kitty mcshane) are shop assistants in a failing antique shop. befriended by the ghost of the infamous captain morgan, old mother riley is directed to a map detailing the location of the captains buried treasure; whereupon they set off to find their fortune. despite a gang of crooks and angry natives being hot on their heels, old mother riley manages as ever to save the day! this is a delightful little romp from arthur lucan and his wife kitty, along with a notable appearance from peter butterworth; who later went on to appear in some of the long running british' carry - on' films .
the film has the highest rating of any 21st century film on the top 100 films of all time list on the review aggregator rotten tomatoes, rated at number 7 .
mother riley and her daughter foil a plan of disinherited relatives to break a will, which states that two strangers must be taken in for 6 months .
future learning and skills – giving everyone the opportunity to build a lifelong relationship with film .
in the late 1930s, arthur lucan and his wife kitty mcshane were britain’s biggest box office draw. in their roles as old mother riley and her daughter kitty, lucan and mcshane topped the bill in the variety theatres, and were star attractions in the cinema. it was essentially a music hall drag act, but it was also a double act. arthur played the dame, old mother riley, an irascible irish washerwoman, and kitty played the wayward and headstrong daughter .
inside out is a 2015 american 3d computer - animated comedy - drama disney / pixar film, it was released on june 19, 2015. it is pixar' s 15th feature - length animated film. in keeping with pixar tradition, a short film called lava accompanied the movie .
this is the first pixar film to lack a concrete main antagonist. anger, jangles, and the forgetters are the closest the film gets to having an antagonist, and even joy herself shows shades of antagonism towards sadness, but other than that, the film has no main villain .
police find the body of a missing four - month - old boy near ...
british film distributors promoted arthur’s films strongly, anxious to find a home - grown series with which to fight back against the dominance of the american - made laurel & hardy pictures. in all he made 17 films, all but two of them in the role of mother riley. at the height of his cinema fame, arthur was voted the sixth biggest british box office star by the motion picture herald in 1943. and at the time of his death arthur was still a box office draw, scheduled to film a sixteenth old mother riley picture ,
old mother riley' s trip to mars
( a spoof of the popular 1938 universal serial, flash gordon' s trip to mars), but which arthur, sadly, would not live to star in. he died on 17th may 1954, in the wings of the tivoli theatre in hull, while waiting to go on stage. a memorial to him stands on the spot where he died, although the theatre no longer exists; the site is now a bakery .
a brief tribute to british comedian arthur lucan, better known as
old mother riley .
born arthur towle in 1885, lucan became a professional entertainer as a teenager and was working in films and on the stage until his death in 1954. for all but his final movie - -
old mother riley meets the vampire ,
aka
my son the vampire
and
vampire over london
( with bela lugosi) - - lucan' s co - star was his real - life wife, kitty mcshane (who played his daughter in their act). background music :
danger
by rick and the fairlanes .
this is also the first pg - rated pixar film to not feature any blood, which the other three films had .
couple arrested after their four - year - old son accidentally shots himself between the eyes could face ten ...
comes an inventive new film that explores a world that everyone knows, but no one has seen: inside the human mind .
despite being more than 70 years old, the film contains some devastatingly funny one - liners from arthur, and some great visual gags. jimmy, who was then aged 18, and who plays the boot boy in the grand household into which kitty has married, looks - and sounds - about 6 years old. he was offered the part after making a big success in pantomime with arthur and kitty in 1939. kitty plays a chorus girl who marries into high society, hence the title of the picture. mother riley is a square peg in a round hole in the grand household .
mrs. riley and her daughter kitty go to paris, and get involved with spies .
at the same time, in so far as riley never comes into focus as a true flesh and blood girl (she is just a vessel), there is something odd about the fact that riley (isn' t riley a boys name ?) plays a stereotypical male sport (ice hockey). it' s as if the film' s creators resist really dealing with a female character — even though, reportedly, doctor drew on his experience parenting a young girl. riley and her mother are certainly called on to play the stereotypically feminine role of supporting dad as he settles into the new job for which they accompany him to san francisco .
arthur lucan had a long career as a female impersonator, playing old mother riley, a stock irish washerwoman on stage and screen until his death. he appeared in just shy of a score of films as the character, with his wife, kitty macshane, playing his daughter. in this one, from an idea from mrs. lucan, kitty marries into society and her mother masquerades as her nurse in order not to embarrass her. the mother - in - law is a snob and the servants are even worse snobs and the entire movie is as obvious in its execution as any bowery boys movie. it' s not just stereotyped, it' s petrified. there is some good talent behind the camera, particularly in the opening sequence in which mother riley stops a bar fight. credit cinematographer james wilson and editor michael chorlton. but they really can' t do much to save this one .
arthur lucan, a lancashire lad, played old mother riley, a comic irish irish crone, for many years old the stage and screen; his wife, kitty mcshane, played his daughter. the only modern comparison would be to tyler perry' s madea... if madea were played by rob schneider acting like stepin fetchit. produced cheaply for the home market, old mother riley was enormously popular. in this movie, mrs. riley goes for a job with a failing circus and saves it, discovers kitty mcshane, her long - lost daughter has been with it since she was an infant and has to save it again from roy emerton, its shoddy owner. the comparative excellence - - so to speak - - - is achieved by the use of circus acts and a subplot in which riley goes to an illegal nightclub, where an uncredited young woman in a spangly bikini sings and does a tap dance. i credit director thomas bentley, a specialist in portraying and staging dickens, whose movie career stretched back to 1912, and included those were the days, a british movie which showcased several music hall acts and an early appearance by will hay. this was his last film credit .
a little interesting detail in the movie is that riley and her mom' s vision from the inside is an oval - shaped screen, while riley' s father is rectangle - shaped screen .
this is the first full feature film from arthur luca and kitty macshane following on from their appearance in stars on parade. an eccentric millionaire leaves his estate to his family on condition that they take into the home the first person who is found on the street selling his briggs matches. that person is of course old mother riley. daughter kitty is of course also brought along and they make themselves at home. as the months pass riley becomes more dominating. kitty is of course romances by a member of the family. relatives plot to get her out of the house by planting jewels in her bedroom. a burglar friend is caught in possession of the jewels. a criminal trial takes place. riley takes control of the defence personally and cross examine the witnesses. riley is of course victorious. reasonable start to long series .
lakeith stanfield and his sorry to bother you director boots riley discuss the stress of filming sex scenes .
mrs. riley is tricked out of her licence for a pub and joins her daughter in portugal .
dr robert kenny previously organised the one - day conference at the london cinema museum on 12 october 2013, which featured several distinguished academic speakers. saturday 12 october 2013 london cinema museum website: urltoken it was a one - day event, celebrating the life and films of arthur lucan, and the centenary of his marriage to kitty mcshane. included talks, discussions, exhibitions, and film screenings. speakers included dr anthony slide, prof jeffrey richards, prof steven fielding, and dr robert kenny (author of the forthcoming book ,
the man who was old mother riley
). the morning session of talks by specialist speakers lasted from 10: 30am to 1: 00pm, followed by an afternoon session including more informal round - table discussions and reminiscences, and the showing of two rare films: margery baker' s 1969 documentary; and the master copy, on loan from the bfi, of' old mother riley in business' .
mr. docter said goofball island was an emotional concept for him, making him think about his own daughter, on whom the film’s story is based .
' he was my son!' devastated father sobs as he is detained by police moments after his two - year - old ...
bleeding cool published an article stating the name of pete docter' s next film would be the inside out. then on february 8, 2013, urltoken reported that the film' s title would be inside out. disney / pixar officially announced the title on twitter on april 17, 2013 during cinema con .
during the fire scene, mrs. riley goes to throw a large vase out of the window but, as
mary gibbs as young riley (during her crying and tantrums) (recycled recordings from monsters, inc. )
inside out is the first full - length film to personify and characterize human emotions and the second disney media work to do that since the short reason and emotion .
a running gag that occurs in the film is that anger is shown reading a newspaper with a headline that displays what' s happening. here are the known occurrences :
eight years before meeting talulah riley, the south african - born musk had courted and married canadian author justine wilson .
an american who sells cars in england receives a mysterious invitation from an old, eccentric millionaire to visit his house in which he lives with his twin brother .
five living emotions are created: joy, sadness, fear, disgust and anger. joy was created first, and controls a console which consists of only one button, at the beginning. 33 seconds later, sadness is born and presses the button, making riley cry. joy is not happy that riley is crying and pushes sadness aside, pushing the button to make riley happy again. this was the first of many moments where joy wouldn' t let sadness control riley .
anthony bourdain leaves majority of his $ 1. 2m estate - which was rumored to be worth at least $ 16m - to 11 - year - old daughter ariane
the otherworldly concerto part of
grim grinning ghosts
is heard during riley' s bad dream about her new home .
on its release in america, inside out had the biggest opening weekend for any original film in box office history, sailing easily past avatar’s $ 77m to an incredible $ 91m. it’s already pixar’s eighth consecutive film to have taken over $ 500m worldwide, and we’ve only just had the opening weekend here in the uk, where it took £7. 35m. if some were beginning to worry that the studio had gone the way of disney, following five years of prequels, sequels and the critically mixed reception to their fairy tale, brave, this new film has proven that pixar is still capable of the funny, surprising and layered storytelling that made its name. but the secret ingredient of this film’s success? sadness .
chris hemsworth kicks off filming for the star - studded men in black spin - off as he cuts a sharp figure in london... 21 years after the first film hit screens
my 10 - year - old son turned to me during the movie and asked whether the brain people in riley' s head had brain people inside their heads, too. and later on, showing even more insight, he suggested that the problem with the movie was that nothing much happened .
this is where sadness comes in. when we get a glimpse into riley’s mother’s head at the dinner table, we can see her own sadness is in charge of operations, and that’s why, even though yellow joy is generally in charge of riley’s hq, she has sadness’s blue hair and aura. perhaps worried that riley might take after her, riley’s mother wants her to be a ‘happy girl’, but as things go from bad to worse, the pressure to be happy begins to seem like the real problem. indeed, recent studies by social psychologist dr brock bastian and others confirm that negativity is often our most useful companion when times are tough – it helps us anticipate problems, find solutions and empathise with others when things are going badly. it’s not negative emotions that are bad for us, but the suppression of them, especially when they are healthy, functional responses to difficult situations .
joy is not the default emotion for everyone, either. in riley' s father, anger is in control, and sadness is in control of her mother. the
cool girl
has fear as the main emotion, and the bus driver' s emotions, aside from their colours, all look exactly like anger .
the character quickly developed a life of her own. sitting in a cafe having lunch one day, arthur, who when out of costume was quite unrecognisable, overheard two women at the next table. they were discussing that week’s bill at the local variety theatre. ‘are you coming to see old mother riley tonight? ’ one woman asked her friend. ‘i’ll not bother, ’ the other replied, ‘i’ve heard it’s just some man called arthur lucan, taking her off. ’ the character had an irish name, riley, and had previously had the even more obviously irish name of o’flynn. mother riley was, moreover, always represented not just as a washerwoman, but as an irish washerwoman. kitty played the role of the daughter in a very pronounced irish accent (which was, in fact, her natural speaking voice). with all this, and despite his adopted irish surname of lucan, arthur always played the part with an english accent !
chris woodward has written a book about the palladium, entitled ‘the london palladium - the story of the theatre and its stars’. he tells me the book mentions nearly every act which ever appeared there, including lucan and mcshane. page 146 has a photo of arthur on stage, in character. and the book also includes reproductions of posters, including a couple showing old mother riley' s billing. this is not a book about arthur lucan, but it does include him. £35 from jeremy mills publishing .
i' m inserting reviews for films i' ve seen that lack one, review... . weaker entry in the series, here the daughter gets kidnapped in portugal by wine thieves. not much of a review i' m afraid, but it' s not much of a film, the copy i saw in nov -' 07 was soft, worn & cut to 73 min' i' m not certain if any good copies of this film survive, as it mine is only it' s 9th vote here. it would be useful if a fan of the film / omr series was to post a review, till then this is it. i need to pad as the above is insufficient waffle for imdb to accept, so i will add that a, lucan appeared on film on 17 occasions, always as omr, and k. mcshane made 16 appearances, as kitty only absent in the final film, some 9 years and 5 films after this one .
1936. musical. this 1936 musical film shows a rare chance to see some of the greatest acts from the music hall years. starring sam barton, mabel constanduros, horace goldin and many more .
pete docter was an animator on cranium command, a former epcot attraction that shares many of the film' s themes of personifying human thoughts as well as the setting of the mind of an adolescent .
trippy indie madeline' s madeline is the movie that lakeith stanfield and boots riley from sorry to bother you want to see the most .
a girl named riley is born in minneapolis, minnesota and, in her mind, emotions are born at different points in her life .
at one point, mrs riley calls her daughter bridget instead of kitty. bridget has been the character' s name in their stage act .
several months later, now 12 years old, riley has recovered. she now has new personality islands, all created by mixed core memories (anger notes that he likes how friendship island has expanded with a new
friendly - argument - section
, suggesting that that island is powered by a joy / anger core memory). meanwhile, sadness is finally treated as an equal among the other four emotions, and joy solemnly remembers bing bong' s sacrifice as things begin to return to normal and riley, now twelve years old, adapts to life in a new city. finally the five emotions now have a larger, more complete console wherein they can act at the same time and help riley better. disgust also notes a large red button labelled
puberty
and questions what it does, joy dismisses it as
not important
. meanwhile, at a hockey game, riley picks up a water bottle belonging to a boy, and inside his mind we see his own emotions freaking out, with a large klaxon alarm shouting
girl !
, possibly hinting at what is to come for riley' s own emotion in the coming years .
also, all the emotions in riley' s mom are all female and resemble her, and the emotions in riley' s dad are all male and resemble him, but riley has 3 female emotions and 2 male emotions who look nothing like her. in this aspect she is unique, as everyone else' s emotions (including those of people the same age of her) are all the same gender and clearly resemble their human
host
.
he retreated within himself. he lost a lot of weight, bags formed under his eyes and' he looked like death itself', riley said .
this image shows how the island appears in the film. inspired by oil refineries, the filmmakers included tubes, pipes and scaffolding on each island. because the islands are roughly seven miles from the headquarters, from which audiences first view them, each of their major attributes had to read clearly, hence their large scale. and each is powered by one of riley’s core memories .
maureen lipman, the well known jewish comedian, was a surprising choice for the part of the fiery irish catholic girl, kitty mcshane. but maureen grew up in hull, and remembered old mother riley’s connection with the city. brian told an amusing account of his first meeting with frank seaton, who was understudying him in the play. ‘have you ever done any understudy work before? ’, he asked innocently. ‘well, ’ came the reply, ‘i actually was arthur lucan’s understudy, and went on for him the night he died. ’ “i fell off my chair backwards, ” laughed brian .
up to this point, the act was still billed in the theatres as ‘lucan and mcshane’, and arthur’s character of the old woman went under the name mrs o’flynn. it was con west, screenwriter of their
sustaining marriage for the 44 - year - old billionaire entrepreneur and innovator is almost as challenging as developing his electric car tesla, designing rockets that deliver supplies to the space station - spacex, or founding paypal .
pixar’s filmmakers and designers have always worked their imaginations to create their films’ original worlds and narratives. but they might have met their biggest challenge in tackling the well of imagination itself — the mind. that’s mainly where pixar’s latest movie, “inside out, ” takes place: in the head of an 11 - year - old girl, riley, at a major moment of change .
although the other emotions beg her to stop riley from running away and fix the relationship between her and her parents, joy turns control over to sadness, which surprises the others, because they need her to help riley. sadness decides to pull the idea bulb out of riley' s mind. this makes riley, under the command of all her main emotions again, give up on running away, and she decides to return home, to her worried parents. joy gives sadness the happy memories and they turned into sad ones. sadness takes control of the panel and riley finally reveals her true feelings to her parents as she begins to cry, telling her parents that she hates san francisco, misses the good old days in minnesota, and that she was pretending to be happy and was afraid of making them mad because she has always been their
happy girl
. riley' s parents admit they feel the same way, creating a new core memory - only this one is a mixture of yellow and blue; both joy and sadness. it creates a new
family island
that is visibly more complete, and allows for the various aspects of her personality to return in full .
bing bong discovers that his rocket had already been dumped into
the memory dump
, a seemingly, never - ending pit of darkness beneath headquarters where obsolete memories go to be erased from existence for good. meanwhile, in riley' s mind, anger, disgust and fear are doing their best to guide riley through her new surroundings. anger accidentally instigates a confrontation with riley' s friend meg when video chatting her, which causes the island which controls this part of her personality ,
friendship island
to collapse into the abyss. the emotions realize that tampering with riley' s personality will cause it to further be erased, with potentially disastrous results .
this sketch is a storyboard for goofball island. it was drawn by the film’s co - director, ronnie del carmen. in their efforts to lock down the script and shape the film’s structure, the filmmakers drew the entire movie almost like a comic book. they put it together with music, sound effects and dialogue to approximate what the movie would be like. the idea for the islands came late in the development process, and the filmmakers needed a sketch that would resemble their idea .
riley’s main problems – growing up, and moving away from her childhood home – are identical to those of pixar’s first feature film, toy story. in the latter, andy’s fear and distress is played out by the toys, the whole story enacting the kind of imaginary play we might expect to see in a child’s psychological evaluation, with woody and buzz vying as male role models (the implication being that the family is downsizing following a divorce). when inside out treats the same topic, the adventure is the emotional journey itself: will joy reign over riley’s head once again ?
arthur joined a family act called the musical cliftons, and later toured with the comedian will pepper. while he was appearing in ireland in 1913, he met and married a young irish girl named kitty mcshane, with whom he developed a double act. arriving in dublin, he found he needed an irish surname in order to obtain work. legend has it he saw a milk cart go by from lucan’s dairy; and lucan he remained ever after. with kitty he created his most famous routine, the sketch brigettes night out. for this he dressed in a frock for the first time, taking the appearance of an old woman. he modelled the costume on the old - fashioned clothes his mother used to wear, and he based the character on gossipy irish women he’d seen while on tour. the fame of the sketch led to them appearing in the 1934 royal command performance. this royal appearance gave them celebrity status, and launched them into their first film .
in this latest film, pixar are not just putting us through the mill. they’re showing us that, somewhat paradoxically, the way to be really happy is to experience a whole range of emotions. when riley is born, there is only joy, standing in front of a laughter button, but as riley grows older, she is joined by anger, disgust, fear and sadness. when life gets really tough, sadness is not the antagonist she first appears, but the unsung hero. that’s the real lesson: joy might be fun to hang around, but wellbeing is a team effort .
riley herself never comes into focus as a person; her parents, teacher, school mates, past life and new environment, are sketched in the most simple, generic terms .
in the teaser trailer, riley and her family are eating from chinese food boxes of the same type as the one seen in a bug' s life and several other pixar films .
there are currently 2 versions of the film' s first official trailer, and there' s only one major difference: in the uk version of the official trailer, the dad' s emotions were watching soccer, but in the us version, they were watching hockey .
emotions are personified as characters who direct riley’s feelings from a control center, and memories are tactile spheres to be collected and stored. extending from the control center are places that guide riley’s actions. with few hard reference points for how to portray these interior aspects of psychology, the filmmakers had the freedom to go anywhere with the look. eventually, they were guided by light .
here is a closer look at goofball island, powered by riley’s moments of silliness and her enjoyment of the playful. the director pete docter and mr. eggleston provide commentary on its development .
each emotion has a defined purpose in riley' s life: joy attempts to keep her happy, anger keeps her life fair, disgust keeps her from being poisoned both physically and socially and fear keeps her safe. sadness, however, doesn' t think she has a purpose in riley' s mind, or that of the other emotions, and is ignored as a result .
“the idea ultimately was the word ‘electrochemical, ’ ” the production designer ralph eggleston said in a telephone interview. “it meant thinking of things as energy or energy - based, excitable. ” that idea led to light - filled characters, and translucence in many of the objects in riley’s mind. the filmmakers met with neurologists and scientists to better understand the mind’s inner workings and came up with places like the islands of personality, powered by riley’s most significant, or core, memories. with names like family island and hockey island, each has recognizable structures that correspond to riley’s memories .
oblivious to sadness' crisis, the other emotions focus on organizing riley' s memories, which are housed in luminous spheres known as memory orbs. the most relevant memories, known as core memories, power up five
islands
in riley' s mind, each reflecting a different aspect of her personality: family island, friendship island, goofball island, hockey island and honesty island .
' hi. i' m linda o' keefe... 45 years ago today, i disappeared and my killer was never found': police tweet as the 11 - year - old girl who was murdered in 1973 in a bid to publicize the cold case
the old mother riley series was certainly an interesting concept. heterosexual british males really relish dressing up in drag (dame edith, monty python, benny hill, etc .), and this series may well have started more modern comedians on their way. unfortunately, the films have suffered in quality over the years, and are faded or spotty. some that i have viewed have such poor sound quality that i lost a goodly portion of the jokes as well as the plot !
headmistress
has survived somewhat better, probably because it was towards the end of the series, but lucan' s physical comedy has become automatic and predictable in this one. still, if you are a lover of brit humor, as i am, you' ll find this a pleasant pasttime .
on riley' s first day of school, joy orders sadness to not touch anything and let the other emotions do their job. but sadness touches a memory that makes riley cry in front of her new class which creates a new core memory. joy desperately tries to dispose of the new core memory by using a vacuum tube that leads to the mind world, but a struggle with sadness leads to the core memories being knocked out from the container. before joy can put them back, she and sadness are carried off with the core memories, leaving disgust, fear and anger to deal with riley .
at night, joy and her fellow emotions finally reach the loading dock, although it is now so late that the train of thought will not arrive until morning. they give riley a nightmare by awakening a monstrous clown named jangles, from her subconscious and fear, being on dream duty that night awakens her, jump starting her train of thought. joy, sadness and bing bong are nearly at headquarters when the other bunch of emotions put their plan in action, instructing riley to steal from her mother' s bag and pack it to run away to minnesota. this action causes riley' s
honesty island
to crumble, destroying the train of thought. joy finds a way back to headquarters through a broken recall tube, but after sadness almost turns the core memories sad, joy decides to leave her behind. she starts up the tube, but as riley gets on the bus, family island begins to crumble, destroying the tube and causing joy to fall into the memory dump. bing bong tries to get her, but the ground he was standing on falls, while sadness barely escapes the same fate .
in a way, that' s the movie' s real point. life' s true dramas, it is implied, are internal and there' s little more to dad or mom or place than the role these play in triggering events inside of riley — or inside each of us. and that, finally, is where the movie falls flat. it purports to the be the story of a girl, but in fact there is no girl character in the film. riley is not a person, she is a robot, a complicated vessel whose actions and intentions are controlled by persons — emotions and memory workers — inside of her. riley is no more an agent in her own right than is, say, a ship an agent in its own right. or, to change the image, she is like a puppet controlled by the team working in headquarters: s he is empty .
inside out begins with a question, posed by the movie' s narrator, joy, who is an emotion living inside of riley: did you ever look at a baby or a person and ask yourself what' s going on in there? a good question, but the movie' s playful answer unfolds more like a textbook presentation of the awkward synthesis than by providing any insight into what it is like to be riley or any other person. headquarters is staffed by five emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust). these compete among themselves to operate the joysticks and dashboard that control the person whose emotions they make up. they handle, store, protect and disregard memories and experiences. at night they do
dream duty ,
projecting film clips (memories) onto the screen of riley' s consciousness. each of them, driven by their own dominant disposition — sadness tends to be sad, joy tends to be optimistic and happy — participates in a kind of give and take, a negotiated peace in which they manage riley' s states and cause her to react to events in the world around her .
kitty protests that she loves the man and wants to marry him. she plays her ace. “after all, mother, you know what it’s like to be in love. you’ve been married yourself. ” but arthur effortlessly trumps her: “yes, but i married your father; you want to marry a stranger! ” eventually kitty decides to stay, and mother celebrates. “i’ll give you a party: i’ll open a tin of sardines! ” the sketch has double - talk comedy, moments of pathos - and pure slapstick as a furious row develops in which lucan as the old woman destroys every piece of china on the set, hurling plates, cups and jugs until only one piece remains intact. until, of course, he forgets he’s holding it, and smashes it. the moment when he realises, not daring to look, holding just the handle as he feels for the non - existent jug, is pure theatrical magic .
joy and sadness venture the various islands and a labyrinth - like place called long term memory, where riley' s past memories are restored. they are soon assisted by riley' s childhood imaginary friend bing bong, a scrappily - dressed pink cotton candy - elephant - cat - dolphin creature. bing bong was hoping to reconnect with riley via a memory of his song - powered wagon
rocket
. although initially, bing bong is happy and cheerful, the pair discover that he is secretly miserable, having been out of a job since riley was four, he desperately wants to feel loved again, reasoning that, if he has no purpose, he will cease to exist. although joy attempts to keep this revelation positive, sadness comforts a crying bing bong (which leaves joy more confused than ever as to how being sad could help bing bong) .
the playground seen in riley' s memory orb is taken from sunnyside daycare from toy story 3, with the only difference being that the slide is not coiled but straight. the setting is also different from sunnyside .
when the story was being developed, it was originally going to be joy and fear who get lost in riley' s mind. according to the developers, they thought it was
like the funniest choice .
silicon valley tycoon, elon musk, called the thomas edison of our time, remains married to his second wife, talulah riley, after divorcing her once, marrying her twice and tearing up the second set of divorce papers .
pixar have never shied away from presenting everything that life can throw at you. perhaps the most famous example is in the montage of carl and ellie’s life together at the start of up, which, taken alone, stands as perhaps the greatest short film of all time, not just for its miracle of condensation, but for the emotional impact of their childlessness, which has reduced audiences of all ages to tears. (careful viewers may even spot scenes from this sequence in the great bowling - ball alleys of riley’s long term memory .) equally, on the death of riley’s imaginary friend, who sacrifices himself to save joy, the cinema erupted with the sound of children crying, which is just as well because i think a number of the adults were sniffing too. the whole audience left the cinema elated .
robert kenny’s new book on the lives and films of lucan & mcshane was published by bearmanor media books on 31st october 2014. the book is entitled “the man who was old mother riley - the life and films of arthur lucan and kitty mcshane” by dr robert kenny. it corrects many errors of fact concerning the biographies of lucan & mcshane. and it includes the first serious full - length analysis of arthur lucan’s films, which have previously been sadly neglected. it contains hitherto unknown reviews and interviews from the hull daily mail in the 1930s, which reveal the depth of public affection for the dame who could make' em cry as well as laugh. as dr kenny puts it :
arthur lucan at his best provoked thought as well as laughter... to the intense annoyance of the establishment, working - class audiences adored this screechy - voiced virago... always the underdog, shaking her scrawny fist at the world in defence of the downtrodden .
inside out follows 11 - year - old riley and the five emotions – joy, fear, anger, disgust and sadness – that live in the control room of her head. when riley’s family moves away from her childhood home in minnesota to san francisco, she loses sight of the core memories that tell her who she is, prompting joy and sadness to go on a journey deep into her mind to get them back. the topography grates: having to catch the train of thought home because honesty island has crumbled sounds like the worst allegory since pilgrim’s progress, if you think about it too hard. but as ed catmull, pixar’s co - founder and president, wrote in his book creativity inc. , ‘if you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. if you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better, ’ and in the hands of pixar’s story artists, the landscape of riley’s mind becomes the battleground for a new way of looking at wellbeing .
regular readers of my comments know that i take each movie as a special challenge. some movies are rewarding in themselves, they intrinsically enrich or give value. most are less than that and require work to make the experience valuable or at least interesting. sometimes the challenge is significant. readers have been sending me movies to test my ability, sort of like audience members throwing chain saws to jugglers. there' s a really challenging batch in my pouch right now, some abbott and costello nuisances, and all of the mother riley things. of them, this is the most challenging, which is to say that it has nothing in it that by itself is remotely interesting. there' s none of the ordinary leverage you can get with bad movies: nothing in the badness is comically bad. its quite simply unsuccessful in its two goals. the setup is mrs riley, played by a man and his on screen daughter played by his wife. she' s so much younger that early in their careers they were advertised as father and daughter. she' s alarmingly unattractive. mrs riley is nauseatingly unfunny. usually when jokes don' t work, it is because there' s a certain ticklish spot that some folks have and you just fall out of the demographic. so you can dismiss it as bad humor, but in doing so you acknowledge that it is humor. the funny bit with mrs riley is rooted in the bristish class system and a specific niche. this is a lot like eddie murphy playing a fat black mama. we all know the type. we all recognize what murphy is playing with. but in 50 years, that stereotype will be gone, the class structure will have mutated and the riff will be completely incomprehensible because its center will have evaporated. well, that' s what happened here. the joke about a specific type of old bag may have had resonance in its time and place  it surely did. but now, it is fossilized humor. the story is unique for the riley serious, i think. it tries to have the old family lost and regained plot. well, that i can be sure of is merely incompetent. ted' s evaluation - - 1 of 3: you can find something better to do with this part of your life .
joy, sadness and bing bong hatch a plan to ride the
train of thought
back to headquarters, and begin their trek through various parts of riley' s mind in order to reach the loading dock (areas such as imagination land, dream productions, and so on). meanwhile, with disgust, anger and fear in control, riley' s life begins to crumble. she alienates her former friends from minnesota, fails to connect with her parents, and struggles in the new school. as joy and company close in on their destination, anger, disgust and fear finally reason that, if riley was only happy in minnesota, there is no choice but to tell her to return there, and prepare to run away from her own family .
and, then, it' s hard to know what to make of the fact that riley' s emotion controllers are made of three females in dresses (joy, sadness, disgust) and two men in male garb (fear and anger). are fear and anger male emotions? are disgust, joy and sadness female? and then there' s the fact that riley is the only character we meet whose internal chorus is made up of male and female characters. mom is all female within. and dad is all male. is riley bi - sexual (in the relevant sense) because she' s pre - pubescent? is there a biological theory of gender at work here? (another interesting question: why is there no racial variation in our internal population? )
one notable occurrence is when anger is referring to the fact that riley' s happy core memories were created in minnesota and uses the console to call up that memory, but is instead met with the commercial. he then yells ,
did i ask for the gum commercial? !
11am - 4pm. talk by dr robert kenny ,
arthur lucan and the hull connection
. round table, q & a;' s. showing of thames tv' s 1969 lucan documentary. visit to the lucan memorial in orchard cafe, paragon street, on the site of the old tivoli theatre. 3: 30pm. wreath - laying at arthur' s grave in hull eastern cemetery .
i don' t mean to be humorless about this. i get the joke. it' s an old joke. recall the sperm people in woody allen' s everything you always wanted to know about sex who live and die by the motto
fertilize an ovum or die trying !
— or the taste buds in the 1979 budweiser commercial who complain about the dry mouth that accompanies the munchies.
old mother riley is a 1937 british comedy film directed by oswald mitchell and starring arthur lucan in the lead , with kitty mcshane , barbara everest , patrick ludlow and hubert leslie . mother riley and her daughter stop the plans of some disinherited relatives to overturn the terms of a will . this is the first in a series of films made between 1937-1952 , featuring arthur lucan 's elderly drag character , and her daughter kitty . after small roles in the irish kathleen mavourneen ( also 1937 ) , lucan and mcshane were approached to star in their own film , old mother riley . the film was cheaply made ( it cost £ 2,000 , taking six weeks to shoot ) and based on their music hall sketch ‘ the matchseller ’ . old mother riley was a box office success and old mother riley in paris soon followed . 
old mother riley is a 1937 british comedy film directed by oswald mitchell and starring arthur lucan in the lead, with kitty mcshane, barbara everest, patrick ludlow and hubert leslie. mother riley and her daughter stop the plans of some disinherited relatives to overturn the terms of a will. this is the first in a series of films made between 1937-1952, featuring arthur lucan's elderly drag character, and her daughter kitty. after small roles in the irish kathleen mavourneen (also 1937), lucan and mcshane were approached to star in their own film, old mother riley. the film was cheaply made (it cost £ 2,000, taking six weeks to shoot) and based on their music hall sketch ‘ the matchseller ’. old mother riley was a box office success and old mother riley in paris soon followed.
old mother riley is a 1937 british comedy film directed by oswald mitchell and starring arthur lucan in the lead, with kitty mcshane, barbara everest, patrick ludlow and hubert leslie. mother riley and her daughter stop the plans of some disinherited relatives to overturn the terms of a will. this is the first in a series of films made between 1937-1952, featuring arthur lucan's elderly drag character, and her daughter kitty. after small roles in the irish kathleen mavourneen (also 1937), lucan and mcshane were approached to star in their own film, old mother riley. the film was cheaply made (it cost £ 2,000, taking six weeks to shoot) and based on their music hall sketch ‘ the matchseller ’. old mother riley was a box office success and old mother riley in paris soon followed.