VINTAGE REVIEW: The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
This is one bizarre movie. Bizarre, but oddly hilarious. The premise of this film involves a mousy nobody named Seymour (Jonathan Haze) who owns an odd plant. His boss at his employment, the local barbershop on the bad side of town (Mel Welles as Gravis Mushnick) tells him that if he can nurse his plant back to life, he’ll be able to keep his job. He does so, but realizes that his plant craves blood and flesh.
This film is one of those B-movies that somehow rises above the stereotypes of B-movies while making expert use of the expectations and limitations found in the B-movie genre. It plays on conventions while expanding on them in a way that creates an oddly captivating film. Also, this film is the one that has gone down in legend as the film director Roger Corman filmed in two days and a night. However, the film never feels as if it’s constrained or rushed due to the limited time span.
One of the best things about B-movies is that there are low expectations (unlike the sometimes stiff , expectation-laden A-list movies), leading directors, screenwriters, and actors to have virtually unlimited creativity. This film is no exception, and it seems to revel in all of its B glory. All of the actors in this film are delightfully unrefined, zany, and clever, fully engaging in their characters. Among the core group of actors is an extremely young Jack Nicholson. If I’m not mistaken, I believe this is one of his first–if not the first–movie he ever made. His character, Wilbur Force, is one of the many crazy people in this film, but his turn as a masochistic freak is one that showed the acting potential he had.
Overall, this movie is a gem of B-movies (it’s beloved so much that it was remade as a musical in 1986). It’s really fun and highly entertaining; I suppose the only way you wouldn’t like it is if you just don’t have a taste for B-movies.
