For the past two or three years, there have been rumors that
there's a remake in the works of Little Shop of Horrors. Not the
musical, mind you, but a remake of the original Roger Corman
shot-in-three-days 1960 black and white original! This rumor is
dubious, however, and on the web site www.imdb.com
(the independent movie data base) the page for this film says "Under
Development", but you have to be a "special member" (which I believe
means part of the movie industry) to get any details of who's producing
the film. Among some comments is that this alleged remake might not
even be a comedy, but a drama !!!! As Mr. Mushnik would say, "Oy
vey!!!"
Many people have seen the 1986 film version of
the off-Broadway musical directed by Frank Oz, which had a fabulous cast
and great songs (although some songs were cut, like the tango "Mr.
Mushnik & Son"). Rick Moranis played Seymour, Ellen Greene played
Audrey (as a ditzy blonde, however Ms. Greene is actually a frizzy
haired brunette!), Vincent Gardenia was Mushnik, the owner of the floral
shop in Skid Row. Many consider Steve Martin's performance as Orin,
the demented and sadistic dentist, his greatest role, and the cast also
included Bill Murray, Paul Dooley, Christopher Guest, James Belushi,
and John Candy, all prime actors in the 1980s. Levi Stubbs was the
voice of Audrey Two.
This very "American" musical was
actually filmed in England, believe it or not, and the awesome sets of
skid row in New York took months to build. More incredible were the
mechanical "puppet robots" that were created of both the little Audrey
Two and it's much larger mature model, an electronically controlled
creature that took dozens of people to operate.
This was
probably the last of the "monster films" that used actual mechanical
models instead of the computer generated horrors that started to appear
in the 1990s. Many interesting problems came up during the filming. As
one example, during the duet of Seymour and Audrey Two ("Suppertime"),
the singing gets rather fast and intense and the automated model of the
singing plant wasn't able to move it's lips quite as fast as the song
demanded. Rick Moranis had to "mime" his singing in slow motion to
match the singing monster, and later the actual voices were dubbed in.
I have seen the stage version several times, (ironically the most
produced stage show in America, out-doing the original chestnut "Our
Town" in the 1990s) and also own the original hardcover screenplay of
the musical (which cost me a lot of money!). I was always puzzled as to
the very different ending the stage version had compared to the film,
and a few years ago I found out why. The original ending was greatly
changed before release !
When the production company did a
couple of previews of the original film (in San Jose, California, and
Los Angeles too), the audience was horrified and gave the movie a rather
dismal review. In the original, the "girl" Audrey as well as Seymour,
are actually KILLED and EATEN by the monster plant !!! Most of the
audience was shocked, they loved the characters and wanted them to live !
So Frank Oz, the director, pulled the film before release and spent
months creating a completely new ending, the cast was called back, as
well as special effects people, and they gave us the version nearly
everyone has seen: Audrey Two is electrocuted to death and Seymour and
his love Audrey live happily ever after in their cartoonish little house
in the country.
However, thank the gods for
"Director's Cuts"!!! In 2012, Frank Oz released a new DVD of the film,
including the original (as well as the released) endings. In the
original, not only are Seymour and the love of his life devoured by
Audrey Two, the monster propagates itself, and dozens of monster Audreys
take over New York City! Buildings are destroyed, the Statue of
Liberty ruined, hundreds of screaming New Yorkers being eaten alive, all
to a song called "Don't Feed the Plants!" (which was cut from
the revised version)! This completely changes the final twenty minutes
of the film and it's quite an incredible ending. What fun! Also in the
DVD Director's Cut version there's an introduction by Frank Oz,
explaining the complex history of the film, and an absolutely
fascinating and detailed documentary covering everything about how the
movie was made.
As to remakes of the Roger Corman
comedy (and it really is a very funny film), we'll just have to wait and
see...............
