Since today is Halloween, this week's Cinema Sunday is coming your way with a one-two punch of movie madness known as...
THE HORROR!
THE HORROR!!
Horror #1 - a mean green mother from outer space!
From 1986, Little Shop of Horrors is a film adaptation of the 1982 off-Broadway musical comedy of the same name by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman.
Yep, the same guys who will give us The Little Mermaid three years later.
In the early 1960's, Seymour is a put upon schmuck working at a desolate flower shop in a desolate part of the city. The only things that give his life any meaning is his co-worker Audrey, a sweet young woman under the unfortunate thrall of a sadistic dentist named Orin.
And his plant, a strange botanical oddity Seymour found at a Chinese flower shop during an unexpected solar eclipse. Seymour dubs the plant "Audrey II" and when he puts it in the window of the desolate flower shop, it soon becomes a cause celeb as new customers start flocking into the store to see this strange and unusual plant.
Sales are growing at the newly successful flower shop.
Also growing is Audrey II when Seymour discovers his strange plant has an appetite... for human blood!!!
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!
And as Audrey II grows and reveals it can TALK, it demands more than a few drop of blood from Seymour's fingers.
AUDREY II is hungry!!!
Seymour has no appetite to commit murder until he catches Orin being very abusive towards Audrey and both Seymour and the plant come to the same conclusion: that dentist looks like PLANT FOOD!!!!!
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!
Things get worse before they get better. There's more murder and the plant is getting bigger, stronger, more malevolent. It's ravenous appetite threatens the whole planet.
Little Shop of Horrors is more fun than horror with great comedic performance and fantastic songs.
Steve Martin steals the film as Orin, the super sadistic dentist. Causing pain is not a bug in his dentistry, it's a feature. Steve adopts an Elvis Presley swagger complete with a sneer and a slick back pampadour.
But Steve has his challengers for scene stealing. Bill Murray as the endlessly prattling masochistic dental patient is a riot. His character's rambling stream of consciousness was mostly improvised.
John Candy's turn as the radio DJ who interviews Seymour about his famous plant is a delightful take on the morning jock who has to do all the voices and sound effects.
A special shout out to the three-girl "Greek chorus" of Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon who introduce the film and comment on the action in song and pithy remarks through out the movie. They are adorned in a variety of outfits, adapting to the different scenes.
Levi Stubbs is a perfect as the voice of the big green mother from out of space, full of power and brovado.
Ellen Greene is remarkable as Audrey. With a squeaky speaking voice, it's astonishing the full throated voice that Ellen has when she sings.
And Rick Moranis is the perfect embodiment of Seymour, a downtrodden nebbish who finds unexpected strength and courage to declare his love for Audrey and to stand up to the marauding Audrey II.
The big behind the scenes legend of Little Shop of Horrors is the original ending which matched the way the play ended: everyone dead and Audrey II conquering the Earth.
In previews, this ending did not go over well at all. And I think this is a fair call. The movie is building up Seymour's character redemption arc and to just have him die and fail to save the Earth simply betrays all that has come before.
Here's another cool thing: All the scenes were filmed at Pinewood Studios in England which is a humongous facility where director Frank Oz had a "downtown" set constructed, complete with overhead train track, was constructed. It looks like to me that part of that downtown set was re-purposed for Gotham City when Tim Burton filmed the 1989 "Batman" move in Pinewood studios.
The fam sat down to watch Little Shop Of Horrors here at the Fortress of Ineptitude a few weeks ago when Randie was here on a visit from college.
Andrea and I had seen it before but somehow, Randie had never gotten to see this movie. Which is weird since Little Shop is right in her wheelhouse: a musical set around a sci-fi plot set in the 1960's and created by the same musical geniuses behind Disney's animation renaissance, it was tailor made for our daughter.
When Little Shop of Horros ran on TCM a few months ago, I made sure to DVR it for Randie's next visit home. And I think she would agree it was worth the wait.
Let's wrap up this post with a wonderful duet between Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene with "Suddenly Seymour".
And that is Part 1 of....
THE HORROR!
THE HORROR!!
Horror #2 will be posting a few hours.
It's just a jump to the left.
No comments:
Post a Comment