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Looking at the movie on imdb, the family is obviously upper class English, and so I think it's likely they were using the Latin for mother and father 'mater' and 'pater'. The English accent (especially the more upper class you go) is non-rhotic and so they would sound like mayta and payta. It's basically a very posh, old fashioned version of mum/mom and dad, actually I've only heard it when an upper class stereotype is being portrayed.

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But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white-then melts for ever