Little Shop! Little Shop of Horrors!

The musical was bar none my favorite movie as a kid, and still one I can sit down and dig all the way through, every time.

Started bcz there's footage of (most of) the musical's original ending on Youtube!

It's black and white so it looks like some German Expressionist thing, freaking crazy!

I played the dentist in my senior musical.

You have a talent for causing things PAIN!!!!

Full on double knee slide, dentist coat with leather jacket over it....awesome. PWND that role.

Fucking rad!

Aw, poor Seymour! I watched this movie many, many times as a kid and borrowed the soundtrack from the library so I could dub my own copy. Always thought there should have been more "The Meek Shall Inherit" in the movie.

"Someone tell Lady Luck that I'm stuck here!"

How have I not posted on this thread? I ~LOVE~ LSOH. Never saw it as a kid but played in the band in my school's production of it, love the songs so so much.

Audrey was in Heroes. She's my hero.

Kinda thinking my husband & I should be Audrey & Seymour for Halloween this year.

Cool idea. My husband already has his costume but dressing as audrey is quite appealing. Maybe we could go as Audrey & dentist next year.

Looove LSOH! Would have sworn I posted something when you posted those outtakes. So cool...

Being a longtime fan of the 1960 original, I was stunned when such unlikely (at the time) source material was turned into a very successful off-Broadway musical (which I also saw, but with Ellen Greene's understudy playing Audrey.)

1986 (the year the film of the musical was released) was also the year Genesis released "Invisible Touch," and I wrote a college term paper comparing/contrasting the two (weird cult films/bands retooling to reach unthinkable levels of popular sucess.) It was kinda convoluted...

Know nothing about this original production, but my mother used to say, "Whaddya want, BLOOD?" all the time so it's in the family phrasebook now.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m8swAxB2Da0/St-r1nflAoI/AAAAAAAAAHE/DHceUB6rNIU/s200/respect.png

The first verse/extended metaphor in "Suddenly Seymour" has always irritated me. I realize he's saying "you don't need no makeup [to cover up black eyes/signs of abuse]" but it just drives me nuts that this new "nice guy" is being controlling, from the start, in his own semi-equal and opposite way. Audrey should be able to wear makeup if she wants to!

In Audrey's verse right after she says Seymour "...don't give me orders/He don't condescend," but he spent the first verse telling her to get rid of her lipstick and mascara! Can you not see, Audrey???

One of the few post-"Great American Songbook" Broadway musicals I actually love. I saw it early on at a dinner theater in the round. Fantastic show! At the very end, the (low) ceiling above each table opened up and out came one of Audrey II's vines/tentacles...right in front of your face. You could touch it. Each thorn had blood on it. Sooo much fun.

My mom bought me the (off?) Broadway cast album during intermission. We got the last copy and a gay couple gave me a mean look.... :(

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"

The Roger Corman original is really funny! I was expecting a straight 'B' horror film and instead got a lot of goofy wordplay, a Dragnet spoof, Dick Miller eating flowers (did The Simpsons lift that gag from here?) and Jack Nicholson as an s/m freak.

I'm increasingly looking forward to it as I work my way through the early Corman/AIP films, which have pretty consistently been way better and more entertaining (while clearly still shot on a buck-fifty budget) than I would've expected.

I hate the musical so I would probably prefer the Corman

I believe it was all filmed in one day

Considering the number of day establishing shots, sets and stunningly-lit night locations, I don’t believe that’s possible.

(Just saw it for the first time, too, despite having owned a DVD 17 years ago)

I'm generally not a big fan of musicals, but I've always liked this one. Alan Menken and Howard Ashman had a heck of a run: Little Shop, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, Aladdin ... nothing I'd personally listen to but objectively impressive all the same. Anyway, I've always liked the Frank Oz version and it hold ups really well! Dark, catchy, funny, A+ cameos (Steve Martin, Bill Murray, John Candy, Christopher Guest). We watched the director's cut last night and ... I think I prefer the theatrical version? It could be nostalgia at work, but while I appreciate the chaos of the DC ending, it just goes on far too long to no real benefit beyond enjoying the models and FX. On wiki there are some great quotes from Oz about the ending:

"I learned a lesson: in a stage play, you kill the leads and they come out for a bow—in a movie, they don't come out for a bow, they're dead. They're gone and so the audience lost the people they loved, as opposed to the theater audience where they knew the two people who played Audrey and Seymour were still alive. They loved those people, and they hated us for it."

"When we did re-shoot the ending, the crowd reaction went over 50 percent in our favor. Before it was a point where they hated it so much, Warner probably wouldn't even release the movie."

I’ve acted in this show, and I still think the ending is pretty brutal - I prefer the movie version. I guess it depends on whether Audrey/Seymour get played as likeable antiheroes or chumps.

The nihilist ending suits the Corman original, though.

It makes me think of A New Leaf, too - the studio-imposed happy ending really works (for me).

Also, it’s a shame Levi Stubbs didn’t do more acting, he’s AMAZING in this

Little Shop, Little Mermaid, 

I've never seen the Corman version. Worth watching?

I’ve acted in this show, and I still think the ending is pretty brutal

I watched our Alice playing Audrey in the school production ! Yeah, that ending...

Yeah, audiences expect the movie ending and get confused ime. I find it anticlimactic and mean, but I guess it’s of a piece with early 80s comedy, like blowing up The Young Ones in the last episode (spoiler!), or even 70s downer Hollywood.

There’s a good Dentist song in the play that’s not in the movie - “It’s Just the Gas”

I've performed "It's Just The Gas" on stage as the dentist, and let me tell you, it is just The Most Fun to sing!

Ha - same!
Loved doing my death in this show

I've never seen the Corman version. Worth watching?

I finally saw it for the first time this year. My viewing definitely didn't benefit from the shitty upload that was available on streaming. Although, looking now, of COURSE there's [a much cleaner upload on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj_17y6i4O4).

whoops, wrong formatting.

The lad who played the Dentist alongside Alice,one of her best pals, is doing quite well...

https://theatreandtonic.co.uk/blog/ajani-cabey-hamnet-interview

That's funny - the guy who was the Dentist in my school production (back in the 90s) has been in a small parts in a few movies.

It's a "big" part as in it rewards over-playing.

And then you get the whole of the second act to recover!