The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) review

9. The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Directed by: Roger Corman

Produced by: Roger Corman

Screenplay by: Charles B. Griffith

Starring: Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles

Today’s film represents an unusual situation in which a remake can become so renowned that it overshadows the original and nearly pushes it into obscurity. Any lover of musicals is familiar with “Little Shop of Horrors,” the horror comedy about a killer plant featuring Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s toe-tapping numbers; it’s seen numerous stage productions, as well as a 1986 Academy Award-nominated adaptation directed by Frank Oz. But let’s rewind back to 1960, when a young Roger Corman was still trying to make a name for himself in the independent cinema field. This early rendition of “The Little Shop of Horrors” has the smallest of budgets and little nuance, but its enjoyably ludicrous tone and memorable performances make it a fun one for what it is.

The main character is Seymour (Jonathan Haze), a meek, bumbling assistant in a struggling floral shop on skid row owned by the blowhard Mushnick (Mel Welles). After Seymour messes up one too many times, Mushnick threatens to fire him, but he piques his interest by telling him about a strange new plant resembling a Venus fly trap he’s been growing in his home. Its name is Audrey Jr., which Seymour named after Audrey (Jackie Joseph), his kind co-worker at the shop. Mushnick gives him one week to prove Audrey Jr.’s worth, but none of the usual methods nourish it, until Seymour accidentally pricks his finger and discovers that it feeds on blood. It grows substantially, drawing sizeable crowds into the shop, and even gains the ability to speak; but its hunger persists, even though Seymour is out of his own blood to sacrifice. However, after inadvertently causing a death at the train tracks, he reluctantly feeds the dead man’s body parts to Audrey Jr.; Mushnick spots him, but the lines of people the plant is bringing in keeps him quiet, even as local Sergeant Joe Fink (Wally Campo) and Officer Frank Stoolie (Jack Warford) start investigating.

I’m a little torn with how I feel about Seymour in this film; he takes part in some funny slapstick and there is sincerity to him, no matter how many times he says, “I didn’t mean it.” But he has this really awkward, low-toned manner of speaking that feels forced; he and Audrey have a nice little rapport, but it doesn’t amount to much interesting. I do like Mel Welles’s slightly frantic mannerisms in his performance as Mushnick, but truthfully, I get more out of the supporting cast overall; there’s a lot of personality, even if their actual roles are minimal. There’s Seymour’s hypochondriac mother Winifred (Myrtle Vail), a customer named Burson (Dick Miller) who prefers to eat the flowers rather than admire them, a waitress (Dodie Drake) who takes aggressive measures to ensure the bill is paid, the sadistic dentist Dr. Farb (John Herman Shaner), and a masochistic dental patient played by—I’m not kidding here—Jack Nicholson in one of his first roles. His scene in the dental chair screaming in ecstasy is one of the big highlights of the movie; he would go on to appear in four more Corman films during the 1960s. After he became a star, Nicholson was prominently featured on home video releases.

Pop quiz, hotshot; how long do you think it takes to shoot a movie? Weeks? Months? Years, depending on the situation? Try two days; I’m totally serious, that’s how long principal photography took on this. Corman still had access to the sets left standing from his previous film, “A Bucket of Blood,” also written by Charles B. Griffith. So the two of them visited a coffeehouse, and brainstormed with waitress and future actress Sally Kellerman, until Griffith piped up—both men in a drunken state—“How about a man-eating plant?” The quick shooting schedule that saw multiple cameras filming at the same time, much like on a sitcom, was apparently done to beat changing film industry rules at the start of the New Year that would’ve cost Corman much more money. So Griffith actually plays a couple of minor roles and provides the voice for Audrey Jr., his father plays a dental patient, and his grandmother Myrtle Vail plays Winifred. In some of the exterior shots done later, Griffith and Welles paid a group of children and a group of winos to appear as extras for between five and ten cents apiece, and got a funeral home to donate a hearse and coffin for shooting, real corpse included. They even bribed the local railroad crew with bottles of scotch so they could use a real locomotive; according to Corman, the total budget was around $30,000, which would equal roughly $270,000 today.

Thankfully, where the film really shines is in its macabre sense of humor; just the sight of Seymour carrying around dismembered limbs and feeding them to Audrey Jr. is wonderful, and the fact that it’s in black-and-white somehow makes it funnier. A story like “The Little Shop of Horrors” really has a way of taking awful, gruesome concepts with vile, disgusting people, and giving them humorous touches; that pays off in some of the dialogue, making for a mood that tells you not to take this too seriously. So when the movie settles on an identity, it’s fun; but it’s hard to pin down what it’s trying to be about. For instance, you’ve got Fink narrating at times, which never really pays off significantly; apparently, Corman’s initial idea was to make a detective movie, but here it just comes across as a confusing, dull cliché. I also don’t like that Audrey Jr. literally starts hypnotizing Seymour into bringing more victims; it comes out of nowhere, and leads to an interaction with a street prostitute that’s just weird.

So in conclusion, if you’re a fan of the stage show or the remake, just know what to expect before going into the original. The remake is superior for various reasons—we’ll get to that one someday—but this is still worth checking out on its own. It’s cheap and basic—the grown-up Audrey Jr. looks like it came from a high school prop department—but there is a certain charm to it, and it definitely has its own dark, witty sensibility that was pretty unique for its time. It was commonly distributed as the B movie in double features, but really gained a cult following through television broadcasts, and has now spawned—or sprouted, if you will—a legacy of its own. It’s public domain, because apparently Corman didn’t think enough of it to bother placing a copyright, so it’s easy enough to find. That same year saw the release of “House of Usher,” probably the first high-water mark in Corman’s career. I don’t think this is a great movie, but its humble, low-budget roots (heh heh) belie an entertaining watch.

My rating: 7.5/10