Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Cast:

Jonathan Haze is Seymour Krelboin
Jackie Joseph is Audrey Fulquard
Mel Welles is Gravis Mushnik
Dick "Mr. Futterman's gonna take care of business" Miller is Burson Fouch
Myrtle Vail is Winifred Krelboin

What the box says:

Seymour Krelboin, who works at Mr. Mushnick's flower shop, is experimenting in his spare time. He develops a new plant species that he hopes will lead him to fame and fortune. Unfortunately, the mutated plant lives on blood and human flesh. Features a small role by then budding-actor-Jack Nicholson.

Plot:

The omniscient cop offers his narration about his strangest case that began at Mushnick’s Florist shop. Mushnick sends Seymour Krelborn to deliver some flowers meanwhile Dick Miller pops up to eat some carnations. Seymour managed to screw up the delivery, and Mushnick is so tired of the screw-ups he’s going to fire him.

Finally movies have found some more gawkward than me and this loser even gets a love interest. Dick Miller and Audrey convince Mushnick to hold off until he sees Seymour’s special plant.
Remember that's a plant that will bring in business to any flower shop...

Seymour brings in his plant which is looking sickly. Mushnick isn’t impressed but lets Seymour stay a little while longer if he can nurse the plant dubbed Audrey Jr. back to life. Seymour accidentally cuts himself and realizes the plant feeds on blood.

The next day, Audrey Jr. has grown. Mushnick and Audrey are impressed.

Did you hear that this movie has Jack Nicholson? Audrey Jr. starts to bring in people and business starts to pick up. However, a few seconds later, Audrey Jr. is getting sickly again.

That night, Audrey Jr. demands for Seymour to feed it. Taking a walk, Seymour throws a rock which knocks a guy out who gets run over by a train. He carries the body away and feeds it to Audrey Jr.

Mushnick and Audrey are on a date. Forgetting his money, Mushnick heads back to the flower shop and spies Seymour dropping body parts into Audrey Jr.

The real secret for plant food...

The next day, Audrey Jr. has grown to 4 times the size of yesterday. Mushnick is getting more freaked out by the plant. Seymour heads off to see the dentist.

The sadistic dentist works on Seymour who becomes terrified and grabs a scalpel. About to duel, the dentist falls over. Jack Nicholson, masochistic patient and undertaker wants to see the dentist. Seymour disguises himself and pulls some of the Joker’s teeth.

You want the dentist!!! You can't handle the dentist!!!

Seymour takes the dentist to Audrey Jr. for a meal.

The police get a case about train detective and a dentist.

Mushnick sees that the plant is even bigger. Seymour gets the nerve up to ask Audrey out on a date. The police show up and question Mushnick. The paranoid Mushnick doesn’t want Audrey Jr. to be fed any more. Seymour learns he’ll be awarded for Audrey Jr.

That night, Mushnick guards Audrey Jr. to keep it from being fed.

I command you to SLEEP!!! A robber breaks in demanding money. Mushnick tricks the robber into thinking the money is hidden in Audrey Jr. Well, the world is missing one robber in a few seconds.

Day, Mushnick wants Seymour to watch Audrey Jr. and then get rid of it. That night, Audrey stays with Seymour at the shop. As they’re talking Audrey Jr., demands to be fed. Audrey thinks Seymour’s a couple of gaskets short of an engine and storms off. Audrey Jr. hypnotizes Seymour to bring in some food. While the mesmerized Seymour wanders the streets and runs into a lady of ill-repute. He knocks her out and takes her back…

Back at the shop, everyone is waiting for Audrey Jr.’s buds to open. However, when they do, they have the human faces of the people Seymour fed to the plant. He runs off into a junkyard with the police in foot pursuit.

The swirly has gone horribly awry... Losing them, Seymour returns to the shop and attacks Audrey Jr.

Seymour’s mom, Audrey, Mushnick and the police see as another bud opens this one of Seymour.

What I say:

A blood-drinking plant that can hypnotize people. Compared with all the computer generated giant insects and killer alligators, a talking paper mache Venus fly trap doesn't seem all that hokey. If anyone is expecting splatterstick, you're going to be disappointed. This isn't the movie that used the amount of fluids as Dead Alive. Little Shop of Horrors is a short (barely 70 minute) movie. It doesn't have time to slow down and just keeps movie moving along.

I've talked about William Castle and his schlocky movies from the 1950s and 1960s. He can't hold a castle to Roger Corman who has to be one of the patron directors of b-movies. He is known for his Vincent Price Edgar A. Poe adaptations, for his cheap B-movies like Wasp Woman and a gaggle of other movies from the 1950s and 1960s before he moved into producing the 1970s and 1980s movies like Death Race 2000 to Piranha.

This isn't the kind of movie you typically don't expect much from. It doesn't have the few warning signs that get my anger the most about movies. It can be seen unlike pitch black unseeable Dreamaniac. Everyone has run across movies that are so slow, they actually get you to want to balance your checkbook or play that one more game of Freecell.

Many low budget movies are peppered with actors who only had a few roles and disappeared. Somehow, finding a movie with Jack Nicholson in a small role in the early start of his career can sometimes be hard to grasp with as over the top and crazy he seems to get...He plays a masochositic dental patient (sure many psychiatrists would love some therapy with that). Dick Miller, the character actor who has been everywhere from Mr. Futterman in the Gremlin movies, Terror, to even the Terminator. Talk about getting around. Jackie Joseph played Audrey is probably known better as Mrs. Futterman from the Gremlin movies though not by her name. Yes, she plays Dick Miller's wife...B-movies are a small world with many tributes.

Bucket of Blood seems to have inspired quite a bit of Little Shop of Horrors. Geeky guy tries to fit into some group. He accidentally kills somebody and is drawn into more and more killing. However, Seymour seems more accidental than Walter Paisley's sculpturing. Well, ablood drinking plant has to be a better reason than covering a corpse up in clay.

Some movie and TV characters are almost immediately recognizable to everyone. The police detectives being a parody of Dragnet's Sgt Joe Friday and Frank Smith is something you don't really expect to pop up in an old movie. While the catchphrase isn't dropped, they do the monotone narration.

I do have to say the 1980s remake does have a better Audrey plant. The fact that one of the Four Tops is the voice and bursts into song just seems more, more understandable. The dentist, a sadistic dentist that uses novocain on himself while he drills on his patients. No wonder the remake had a dental Steve Martin singing about being a dentist.

Quotable Dialogue
"Who am I to argue with science?"
"Don't knock it till you try it."
"Alcoholic content 98%."
"FEED ME!!!"
"Eat up the people!"
"It's monstrositious!"
"Master doesn't eat goat."
Morals of the Story
Dentists talk on the phone while drilling teeth.
Hypochondriacs are alcoholics.
"Tis the Season" is the best song to sing while feeding human body parts to plants.
Sadistic dentists are commonplace.
Cough syrup is the best liquid to use for a toast.
Peanut butter and jelly is an exotic food.