The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

A clumsy young man nurtures a plant and discovers that it's a bloodthirsty plant, forcing him to kill to feed it.

Director:

Roger Corman

Writer:

Charles B. Griffith (screenplay)

Stars:

Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Jonathan Haze	...	Seymour Krelboyne
Jackie Joseph	...	Audrey Fulquard
Mel Welles	...	Gravis Mushnick
Dick Miller	...	Burson Fouch
Myrtle Vail	...	Winifred Krelboyne
Karyn Kupcinet	...	Shirley (as Tammy Windsor)
Toby Michaels	...	Shirley's Friend
Leola Wendorff	...	Mrs. Siddie Shiva
Lynn Storey	...	Mrs. Hortense Fishtwanger - Society of Silent Flower Observers of Southern California
Wally Campo	...	Det. Sgt .Joe Fink / Narrator
Jack Warford	...	Det. Frank Stoolie
Meri Welles	...	Leonora Clyde (as Merri Welles)
John Herman Shaner	...	Dr. Phoebus Farb (as John Shaner)
Jack Nicholson	...	Wilbur Force
Dodie Drake	...	Waitress

Storyline

Seymour is a young man who works in a flower store. He manages to create a carnivorous plant that feeds on human flesh. Nobody knows about it, so Seymour and the plant become good "friends". The plant needs food to grow up, so it convinces him to start killing people.

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Plot Keywords:

plant | flower | black comedy | carnivorous plant | attacked by a plant | 

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Taglines:

The funniest picture this year!

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Genres:

Comedy | Fantasy

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 August 1960 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Passionate People Eater

Filming Locations:

Bunker Hill, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$27,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Filmgroup, The, Santa Clara Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

72 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When asked where Seymour got the plant, he replies that the seeds were obtained by a Japanese gardener who found the bulb in a "plantation next to a cranberry farm." This joke is lost on modern audiences. In 1959, it was announced that cranberry crops were tainted with traces of the herbicide aminotriazole, and as a result, cranberry sales plummeted.

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Goofs

Frank walks into Detective Fink's office, sits down and lights a cigarette. The cigarette remains in his mouth until a close-up shot, where it is missing. When the wide shot is resumed, the cigarette is back again.

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Quotes

Det. Sgt .Joe Fink: Now we were on the case. Officer Frank Stoolie and me. My name is Fink. Sergeant Joe Fink. I'm a fink.

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Connections

Referenced in The Directors: The Films of Roger Corman (1999)

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Soundtracks

"I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls"
(1843) (uncredited)
from "The Bohemian Girl"
Music by Michael William Balfe
Lyrics by Alfred Bunn
Sung off-screen and a cappella by Jonathan Haze

User Reviews

Still Unique Even After 45 Years

Here's a movie that's gone from cult classic to just plain classic. For me, it's one of the few "cult classics" I saw when it was released and then first shown on television. I loved it then, and I love it now.

Forget the musical re-make made in the 1980s. It couldn't hold a candle to the original.

"Original" is what this is, too. and nowadays, it's great to have it on DVD in which the audio is clear and the picture pretty sharp.

I have always particularly enjoyed the many humorous lines delivered by Mel Welles, who plays the flower shop owner. He is the real comedian of the cast, although the plant does quite well as do the two leads played by Jonathan Haze and Jackie Joseph. The latter two are a little more subtle in their comedy.

All the characters in here are totally whacked, from Haze's hypochondriac mother to Dick Miller's flower-eating character to the Jewish mother who always has a dead relative to moan about and to the dentist and his patient. The latter, of course, is Jack Nicholson, making his movie debut and looking about 16 years old.

In the end, though, what one remembers most is the plant demanding, over and over, to "Feeeeeed me!!"

For that, the plant and the film never fail to make me laugh.