Talking Classic Movies with Mal MacDonald: Sci-fi hits and sci-fi pits

Grab your ray guns and watch out for radioactive monsters and pod people; this week Orange City Life sat down with Mal MacDonald from Reel Memories to talk cult science fiction movies from the 50s and 60s.

It is a genre of particular interest for Mal who has made a career of hunting down hard-to-find titles and has even played a part in getting cult hits back into circulation.

Thanks for talking to us again Mal, what have you got for us this week?

When we go down this road, we get what I like to call the sci-fi hits and the sci-fi pits. A lot of these films are still today rated quite highly on Rotten Tomatoes, but there were some other real turkeys that were made! Giant Claw is one that stands out as a real baddie, but then younger kids today are sort of appreciating these older films, because they get a kick out of them, they are so bad it's good, so they get a bit of a cult following.”

OK, so what is your pick of the ‘pits’ as you call them?

This is a bit of a cult film: Ed Wood’s masterpiece, Plan 9 from Outer Space — Graverobber from Outer Space, it was originally called. It’s a black and White 1959 film which of course had Bela Lugosi [known for playing Dracula on stage and screen] — it only had a few minutes of footage of him that Ed Wood shot in 1956 and by the time this film came around Bela had passed away.  It is listed as one of the 50 worst movies ever made! There was another movie made called Plan 9 which was a bit of a homage and it wasn't that much better!

Now we go onto some of the better films… Keep in mind that a lot of these films were made not long after the nuclear bombs went off at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so the 50s spawned a whole range of nuclear-related films; apocalyptic type films or films where a nuclear bomb had been tested somewhere in the desert and it spawn all these various huge monsters.

Tarantula is one of those. It’s a black and white film came out in 1955 from Universal and Universal did a lot of this sort of stuff. I starred an actor called John Agar who was at one stage married to Shirley Temple.

This Island Earth was one of the better science fiction films from the 50s. Another Universal film from 1955 in colour, it is one of those great classics as it fills a lot of the science fiction clichés. It has got monsters in it, a creature with a big head from the planet, a flying saucer, ray beams, so it really fits in that classic sci-fi look.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the original 1956 version. It was remade in 1978 with one of the original actors, Kevin McCarthy who was still running around yelling about pod people. But the two main stars in this version were Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy, who we all know later as Spock. As a bit of side trivia, one of the co-screenwriters on that film was Sam Peckinpah, who went onto directing fame for the Wild Bunch, Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Major Dundee. And one of the actresses, Carolyn Jones, she went on to become Morticia in the Adam's Family.

A great one from 1958, is I Married a Monster from Outer Space. That had the actors Gloria Talbott and Tom Tyron — he was an old star, well young when this was made, but he's been in a lot of westerns and different things.

Now next a few films I had something to do with getting released. I'm working with a company that, occasionally, will ask me for suggestions and I give them a batch of titles and they clear the rights and sell them — It saves me from opening my own label!

This is one of my favourites, a colour gem from 1959, 4D Man. This was an interesting one starring, Robert Lansing, who is working on a dimension device to get through solid subject matter and he can walk through walls put his hands through glass windows and rob people but to survive he has to lay his hands on people and the people would be then white haired and dead on the floor! Robert Lansing was of course in a number of different westerns and things, but he was better known, in later years, for the TV Series 12 O’clock High. This also starred a very young Patty Duke.

Cyborg 2087, was another I got released. This was originally made for TV but released theatrically and if this doesn't have tones of The Terminator in it, I don't know what will! It is about a cyborg who comes back from 2087 to the year 1965 to change the future, but is pursued by two other cyborgs sent to stop him. This movie stars Michael Rennie and the sci-fi buffs will know him from 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Gorgo, I also got this one released this is a British Film released through MGM UK with Bill Travers and William Sylvester. It is about a 250-foot mother monster who wreaks havoc on London to come back to rescue her baby, who has been captured by two chaps to put on display. Various places like Big Ben get destroyed. It was a kitschy little production, one of the better UK ones that were around.

Another one I got released is the 1964 colour production, Robinson Crusoe on Mars. That had the actor Paul Mantee, Vic London, and one other who we all know went on to fame and fortune, Adam West, who was Batman for the original TV Series and Batman the movie. It’s a bit of a classic, so I was glad to get that one released as a lot of people had been chasing it for years.

Now The Blob was one of Steve McQueen's earlier lead role, and then there is the follow up movie that came out decades later in 1972 Son of Blob — it is also known as Beware the Blob. You won’t believe this, but the director is Larry Hagman, who became famous as an actor, he also has a small part as a hobo that gets eaten by the blob.

The sci fi hits and sci fi pits — there is quite a few of them! There is the original 1958 The Fly, The War of the Worlds... We certainly haven't covered everything!

Mal can be contacted by email reelmemories@outlook.com, by phone 0419 979 773, or find him on Facebook.