The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Director:

Roger Corman

Writer:

Charles B. Griffith (screenplay)

Release Date:

14 September 1960 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Horror

Tagline:

The flowers that kill in the Spring TRA-LA

Plot:

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

Plot Keywords:

Plant | Black Comedy | Carnivorous Plant | Flower | Dismemberment

Cast

Jonathan Haze	...	Seymour Krelboin
Jackie Joseph	...	Audrey Fulquard
Mel Welles	...	Gravis Mushnik
Dick Miller	...	Burson Fouch
Myrtle Vail	...	Winifred Krelboin
Karyn Kupcinet	...	Teenage Girl (as Tammy Windsor)
Toby Michaels	...	Teenage Girl
Leola Wendorff	...	Siddie Shiva
Lynn Storey	...	Mrs. Hortense Feuchtwanger (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

Also Known As:

The Passionate People Eater (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

70 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:S (1998) | UK:A (theatrical rating) (1973) | Finland:K-11 (DVD rating) (2007) | Ireland:PG | Argentina:16 | Australia:PG | UK:PG | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Chaplin Studios - 1416 N. La Brea Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Santa Clara Productions

Trivia:

Was remade as a successful stage musical that was later adapted into a film (Little Shop of Horrors (1986)).

Goofs:

Continuity: When Winifred begins sipping her Dr. Slurp's high-octane 'cough medicine' in the bedroom, the bottle is almost full; a moment later when she walks into the living room, the bottle is half empty even though she doesn't drink again until Seymour is leaving.

Quotes:

Wilbur Force: No novocaine. It dulls the senses.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Fantastic Fantasy Fright-o-Rama Show Vol. 1 (1996) (V)

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.