Gravis Mushnik (Mel Welles) is running a flower shop and the business is not at all a gold mine, to say the least. First of all he has the regular costumers not wanting to pay the full prize for his plants and he doesn't change much concerning the assortment either.
One day Seymour Krelboyne (Jonathan Haze) - his young and not to bright assistant - finds a remarkable plant that he starts to nurture. This as they both are looking for a unique plant that could boost the business.
Unfortunately (initially fortunately from one perspective) the plant nurtures on human blood!
First Seymour doesn't believe his ears when the plant starts to talk and asks for blood but gradually he understands that this is actually happening.
What to do?
First he 'injects' small quantities of his own blood but as the plant grows bigger and hungrier he has to find another solution. This not least as this plant has made the flower shop one of the most visited and the sales heads towards the ceiling. Before this Seymour was risking loosing his job but now he has become a celebrity and so has the owner, mister Mushnik - and not least the plant!
Finally Seymour accidentally kills a man and he brings him to the shop and feeds the flower with the corpse. As this works out well, Seymour is obliged to continue, forced not only by the plant but by the owner, the latter not intially knowing how he makes the plant grow but when becoming aware of it, don't do much to stop it.
This continues to the bitter end, bitter for Seymour at least.
The film is well known and it's based on a story called "Green Thoughts" written by John Collier (1932). Later on this became a very popular off Broadway-show, later remade into a feature film (1986) and again played at Broadway.
It contains a lot of Jewish, bizarre, raw and surprising humour making this oeuvre a rather fascinating piece of work, maybe shocking someone at the time but today just being laughed at as the jokes and oddities feels rather dated.
Of course this is also a blink to stories having overflooded our literature and film, discussing how
far man should go in our quest to tame the nature and trying to manipulate it.
In classics like 'Frankenstein' or 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', it's the manipulation of man himself or manlike 'inventions', in this film the critic is more aimed at the refinement of plants, nowadays genetically (GMO), in 1932 (when the book was written) in a developing phase with different kinds of cross-fertilizations.
It's however not the possible 'social message' that strikes you most in this film but more the amuzing story, the bizarre jokes and the personalities.
Talking about personalities, Jack Nicholson appears as an actor for the forth time when appearing as Wilbur Force in this horticultural film!
One day Seymour Krelboyne (Jonathan Haze) - his young and not to bright assistant - finds a remarkable plant that he starts to nurture. This as they both are looking for a unique plant that could boost the business.
Unfortunately (initially fortunately from one perspective) the plant nurtures on human blood!First Seymour doesn't believe his ears when the plant starts to talk and asks for blood but gradually he understands that this is actually happening.
What to do?
First he 'injects' small quantities of his own blood but as the plant grows bigger and hungrier he has to find another solution. This not least as this plant has made the flower shop one of the most visited and the sales heads towards the ceiling. Before this Seymour was risking loosing his job but now he has become a celebrity and so has the owner, mister Mushnik - and not least the plant!
Finally Seymour accidentally kills a man and he brings him to the shop and feeds the flower with the corpse. As this works out well, Seymour is obliged to continue, forced not only by the plant but by the owner, the latter not intially knowing how he makes the plant grow but when becoming aware of it, don't do much to stop it.This continues to the bitter end, bitter for Seymour at least.
The film is well known and it's based on a story called "Green Thoughts" written by John Collier (1932). Later on this became a very popular off Broadway-show, later remade into a feature film (1986) and again played at Broadway.
It contains a lot of Jewish, bizarre, raw and surprising humour making this oeuvre a rather fascinating piece of work, maybe shocking someone at the time but today just being laughed at as the jokes and oddities feels rather dated.
Of course this is also a blink to stories having overflooded our literature and film, discussing how
far man should go in our quest to tame the nature and trying to manipulate it.In classics like 'Frankenstein' or 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', it's the manipulation of man himself or manlike 'inventions', in this film the critic is more aimed at the refinement of plants, nowadays genetically (GMO), in 1932 (when the book was written) in a developing phase with different kinds of cross-fertilizations.
It's however not the possible 'social message' that strikes you most in this film but more the amuzing story, the bizarre jokes and the personalities.
Talking about personalities, Jack Nicholson appears as an actor for the forth time when appearing as Wilbur Force in this horticultural film!
(Poster from the film copied from: http://whatculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/lsoh_lobby.jpg)
(Photo depicting Jonathan Haze, Mel Welles and Jackie Joseph copied from: http://images.starpulse.com/news/bloggers/640389/blog_images/the-little-shop-of-horrors-1960.jpg)
(Photo Jonathan Haze as Seymour Krelboyne with plant copied from: http://showmeyourindies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/little-shop-of-horrors1.jpg)
(Photo Jack Nicholson copied from: http://www.schlockmania.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/LSOH60-03.jpg)
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