Talking classic movies with Mal MacDonald: Hollywood Epics and Biblical blockbusters

These days it seems we are spoilt for choice when it comes to the ready availability of movies and television shows. Internet streaming services have made mass libraries of entertainment available in our living rooms at the click of button.

But, as extensive as these options seem, they are far from comprehensive. Many a great movie or classic series from the past are notably absent from any online service, which is where Mal MacDonald comes in. For over 40 years, Mal has made a career out of sourcing and selling unique and hard-to-find movies and memorabilia. His business REEL Memories has a catalogue of thousands of titles, many of which you will have trouble finding anywhere else.

With so many people stuck at home burning through their Netflix watch lists, Orange City Life decided to catch up with Mal to talk about some of his picks of classic movies from the past.

“There is a wealth of them, but I thought we might start with ‘Epics and Biblical’,” said Mal.

Great, so just what makes a film Epic?

“It is those wide-scale big films, with casts of thousands. Probably the best one to sum it up and he started it all off was Cecil B. DeMille, he has casts of thousands in his movie. Of course, this was all before CGI came in, where now they can just create people and put them into movies. This was back in the heyday when Cecil B DeMille would say, ‘OK, start the action! and you would have all these people milling around in scenes.

“You can find stuff up on YouTube of him behind the scenes directing up on one of the big trolleys that they had to move with the action. And he was directing and all these masses of people!

“The Epics are interesting because they were made from the silent period right through into the 60s. And a lot of it was ground-breaking, because they used different camera techniques that are still used today, like overhead panning shots, moving trolleys to get these sweeping shots of scenes you see it in a lot of later war movies… Epics died out, simply because it got so costly to produce them. I mean today you couldn’t remake Gone with the Wind the way it was shot back in the period, because it would just cost too much.”

So, what examples can you give us of some of these great Epics?

“People will of course remember Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston and Yule Brenner, where there were thousands in it! The Ten Commandments was originally a silent. Cecil B. DeMille was doing films back in the silent period, and he actually remade a lot of his silent film epics. He was a big name in film. A lot of his stuff was mainly tied to Paramount but he did other productions as well.

“Another big one was a 1963 film 55 Days at Peking with Charlton Heston. It still occasionally gets a run on TV and it also starred Ava Gardener, David Niven, it was directed Nicholas Ray and produced by Samuel Bronston — he did a number of these big Epics.

“Now, El Cid was another Samuel Bronston production released in 1961, again with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren, Herbert Long, Ralph Stallone and Genevieve Page — people will remember those names.

“There was the 1965 production through United Artists, The Greatest Story Ever Told - that had Max Von Sydow, Charlton Heston was in that one again — Chuck seemed to turn up in a lot of these films — Angela Lansbury was in it, who people will remember from Murder She Wrote and even John Wayne had a cameo in it.

“From 1954, there was The Egyptian, directed by Michael Curtis, who did a lot of action and westerns.

“There’s the Richard Egan film The 300 Spartans, Now in recent times they did a movie called 300 where virtually all of that was done in front of a green screen backdrop and all the masses of people were just CGI. The original one, circa 1950, and it has thousands portraying the true events of the Spartans who held off the hordes to give time for their army to come.

“The Crusades, now this was one of these big Cecil B. DeMille films, circa 1935 and this had Lorretta Young, Henry Wilcoxon, and also Katherine De Mille which was DeMille’s sister…

“Gary Cooper’s one from 1935, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The Vikings with Kirk Douglas, John Wayne's The Conqueror… There's so many, we have just skimmed the surface!”

Now, most of these titles are very familiar to me even though they were made long before I was born. Why do you think these films have stood the test of time for so long?

I think it is just the unique content of the product. A lot of modern action stuff and dramas, you might watch it once or twice and that'll be it. But some of these old movies just have repeat viewing. You can watch them over and over again, and unless you've been lucky enough to see these on TV or get them from some specialty crowd like myself, these movies aren't normally around.

Mal can be contacted by email reelmemories@outlook.com or by phone 0419 979 773. He also has a Facebook page where he shares images from his extensive stock of classic and genre movie posters.