The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

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

Directors:

Roger Corman, Charles B. Griffith (uncredited)

Writer:

Charles B. Griffith (screenplay)

Stars:

Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Jonathan Haze	...	Seymour Krelborn
Jackie Joseph	...	Audrey Fulquard
Mel Welles	...	Gravis Mushnick
Dick Miller	...	Fouch
Myrtle Vail	...	Winifred Krelborn
Karyn Kupcinet	...	Shirley (as Tammy Windsor)
Toby Michaels	...	Shirley's Friend
Leola Wendorff	...	Mrs. Shiva
Lynn Storey	...	Mrs. Hortense Feuchtwanger
Wally Campo	...	Sgt. Joe Fink / Narrator
Jack Warford	...	Detective 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

When the clumsy Seymour Krelboyne spoils two flowers of a client, the owner of a small florist shop Gravis Mushnick is ready to fire him. However Seymour tells that he has mixed two plants of different breeds at home and created a hybrid named Audrey Jr. and Mushnick decides to give another chance to his employee. On the next day, Seymour brings Audrey Jr. that becomes the pride and joy of Mushnick, his other employee Audrey Fulquard and clients. Out of the blue, the flower seems to be dying and Seymour accidentally learns that she likes blood. One day, Seymour is upset since he does not know how to feed the flower and he walks along a railroad. When he throws a stone near a railroad track, he accidentally hits the head of a man that falls on the track and is a train runs over him. Seymour brings the pieces of the man to the shop and finds that the plant likes flesh. On the next morning, Audrey Jr. has grown and become the attraction of the shop. But how will Seymour feed his plant ...

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Plot Keywords:

black comedy | man eating plant | speaking plant | hit by a train | eaten alive | 

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Taglines:

The store with more.

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Genres:

Comedy | Horror

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Certificate:

Not Rated

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)

Gross USA:

$1,400,000, 31 December 1960

Company Credits

Production Co:

Roger Corman Productions,Santa Clara Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

72 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In 1995, the movie was adapted as a 3-issue comic book series, which was released by Roger Corman's Cosmic Comics. The last two issues included interviews with stars Jonathan Haze and Mel Welles.

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Goofs

Jackie Joseph's character name appears to be spelled incorrectly as "Audry" in the end credits. On the sign outside of Mushnick's shop advertising the new plant, the name appears as "Audrey" Junior, the spelling most often used for this name.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Sgt. Joe Fink: [voiceover over a panning shot of a drawing of a sleazy neighbourhood] My name is Sergeant Joe Fink, working the 24-hour shift out of homicide. And this is my workshop. The part of town that everybody knows about, but that nobody wants to see - where the tragedies are deeper, the ecstasy's wilder and the crime rate consistently higher than anywhere else. Skid Row... my beat.

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Alternate Versions

The Filmgroup Inc. opening logo is cut from some prints.

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Connections

Referenced in Cinemassacre's Monster Madness: The Screaming Skull (2010)

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Soundtracks

Auld Lang Syne
(1788) (uncredited)
Traditional Scottish ballad
Words by Robert Burns
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.