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 flowers that kill in the Spring TRA-LA

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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

Charles B. Griffith stood off-screen providing the voice of Audrey Junior as a reference for the actors and actresses. The voice of the plant was supposed to be dubbed in by another actor in post-production, but Griffith's vocalization of the plant got laughs, and Producer and Director Roger Corman was notoriously cheap, so his voice remained in the final print of the film.

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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

[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 film was colorized twice. The first colorized version of the film was authorized by in 1987. This version featured several continuity errors, including the color of Audrey's costume changing several times in the same scene. Although it was poorly received, this version carried over to the 2006 Corman-authorized DVD released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment (which featured no black and white version of the film). The second colorized version of the film was produced by Legend Films in 2006, and was better-received. The Legend Films edition is the only DVD release of the film to offer both black and white and colorized versions of the film.

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Connections

Referenced in 24x36: A Movie About Movie Posters (2016)

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Soundtracks

Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes
(1616) (uncredited)
Music by R. Melish (1780 ?)
Lyrics by Ben Jonson (in poem To Celia) (1616)
Sung a cappella by Myrtle Vail

User Reviews

A $50 Corman classic!!

'The Little Shop Of Horrors' is one of the movies that Roger Corman's reputation as the "king of the quickies" is founded on. Filmed in two days on a budget less than Spielberg's dinner money, this is one of the all-time b-grade camp classics. While the humour is extremely dated the concept is very black and contemporary. Charles B. Griffith probably deserves as much credit for this movie as Corman. Writing this, 'A Bucket Of Blood', 'The Wild Angels' and 'Death Race 2000' has ensured him movie immortality! Corman semi-regular Jonathan Haze may not be as fondly remembered as Dick Miller, but he is well cast as the klutzy Seymour Krelboyne, "father" of the blood thirsty exotic plant Audrey, and Mel Welles hams it up as his tyrannical boss Mushnick. But the show is stolen by Miller as a flower eating hipster, and an astonishingly fresh faced Jack Nicholson as a masochistic dental patient (a classic bit!), as much as Audrey herself. Forget the crappy 80s musical version, stick with this, the real deal. It is pretty creaky in places but still a lot of fun!