I loved almost everything Allan Sherman did. Notice I said "almost." One of his less wonderful endeavors came about in 1964 when for God knows what reason, he got involved with a dreadful movie scam. It was an American release of an awful 1952 British monster comedy called Mother Riley Meets the Vampire. For the U.S., it was retitled My Son, the Vampire (to cash in on the fame of Mr. Sherman's My Son, the Folk Singer) and Allan recorded a terrible title tune for it. He also appeared in its trailer and filmed a little non sequitur scene which was spliced into the movie but spliced out for most TV airings.
The "Mother Riley" series was a popular, long-running British series. Mother Riley was an old vaudeville act featuring a gent named Arthur Lucan who was kind of the Dame Edna of his day. He went on to appear as the character in sixteen or seventeen movies made between 1937 and 1952. In fact, Mother Riley Meets the Vampire was the last of what had once been an extremely profitable series. (Lucan died in 1954.)
The vampire in question was played by Bela Lugosi during that portion of his career when he'd appear in just about anything for money. As the story is told, he appeared in England in 1951 in an acclaimed but unsuccessful production of the stage play of Dracula. Supposedly, when the play closed, Lugosi was left stranded and without cash, and he appeared in the Mother Riley movie to earn money to return home. It was not the worst movie in which he ever appeared — this was a man who worked for Ed Wood, after all — but it was sure close.
Eleven years after it was made, the movie got its first U.S. release with Lugosi unmentioned in either the advertising or even the film's credits. I'm guessing this was to mask the fact that it was an old movie since Bela had been dead for eight years by then. Allan Sherman was barely in it and the film was sold on the strength of his name, which must have led to some angry moviegoers.
Here's the trailer for the film which rather pointedly shows a little bit of Sherman and no scenes at all from the movie…
And now here's the opening minute and a half of the movie with Mr. Sherman's forgettable title tune. I hope he was well paid for this…