The original ending of "Little Shop of Horrors," and why I hold the unpopular opinion that it sucks

[thehefner]

One of these days, I really need to work on a proper essay about Frank Oz's Little Shop of Horrors, to cover five topics in detail:

1.) Why it's one of the greatest movie musicals ever, even if the only time I ever hear it referenced in pop culture is via Family Guy (who've directly homaged it no less than three times)

2.) Why it's vastly superior to the stage versions, both the original and revival

3.) Why Menken and Ashman are perhaps the greatest musical writing duo of all time

4.) The brilliant Bill Murray scene, which adds absolutely nothing to the story

5.) Why it's a rare example of a studio audience being absolutely right in rejecting the dark original ending in favor of a re-shot happy one.

For now, I'll say this much. In the context of the original stage show, it fits to have the plant win. It's a Faustian bargain, and those never go well. But the film makes enough tweaks to the storyline, most notably with the brilliant new song "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space," that automatically make Seymour less of a weak-willed sucker who deserves his fate and more of an underdog who we WANT to win. Frankly, Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene put so much genuine emotion into "Suddenly Seymour" that I honestly can't imagine anyone really enjoying watching them lose and get eaten, as the original script warranted. But no matter how important and truthful it is to see people pay for the consequences of their actions, I find the original ending to LSOH too damn ugly, because Seymour and Audrey just didn't deserve their fates, especially since the film version pretty much absolved Seymour for Mr. Mushnik's death by outright making Mushnik an opportunistic, blackmailing thief. For those who haven't seen it, here's how the film originally ended, and it's the version preferred by Oz, Moranis, and pretty much everybody involved with the film:

It doesn't help that "Don't Feel the Plants" is the weakest song by far of all the songs included in the LSOH film. The film lost several songs from the original Off-Broadway version, and was better off for it. None of those songs were anything to write home about, and the same goes for "Don't Feed the Plants," which fails to convincingly sell the idea that the two characters whom you came to care about all died in the name of the film's overall message. It's a bad song and a bad ending that appeals only to critics who bend over backwards to betray character and emotion in the cold name of theme.

Comments

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

I like both the film and the musical.

As a side note, I've always wanted to be in a production that had a big tall sparkly wonderful drag queen in a Broadway-lion-king-style costumepuppetthing as Audrey II, because Twoie's numbers are SO drag queen numbers, let's just face facts, here.

[ievil-spock-47i.livejournal.com]

excellent post!

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Little Shop of Horrors unnerved the holy living hell out of me as a kid. I was in grade school when I saw it, and the scene with Bill Murray was the reason why my mom had to stammer through an explanation of what a "masochist" is, because I couldn't understand why he seemed so overjoyed to be subjected to such pain. And when Steve Martin just EXPIRED, laughing gas mask on ... Jesus, that sent chills down my spine. Not because he died, because I'd seen fictional characters die in films and TV shows before, but ... the TONE of it, man. The fact that we were supposed to find it FUNNY was what got to me and HAUNTED me.

I was still in grade school (again) when I saw Brazil, and once more, I'd already seen 1984 (with William Hurt and Richard Burton, and I was so proud of pointing out to my English teacher mom that Winston actually dies at the end of the novel, which even she had forgotten), but seeing that same scenario played for HUMOR? With the poor old lady whose surgery's complications had complications, and Harry Tuttle literally getting swallowed by paperwork, until nothing was left of him? That gave me NIGHTMARES, man.

I tried to articulate this to my mom at the time, because while she was always very cautious about letting me see "grown-up stuff" in more realistic stories, she was continually surprised by how unmoved it left me when it was presented in such a serious format, so when she pointed out to me that I'd seen far worse (against her own advice) and been even less affected by it than her, I told her, "Yeah, but that was DRAMA. With COMEDY, it's ... different."

She smiled softly to herself, as if a light had come on.

"Oh," she said. "Well, you live in laughter, so maybe that's it. It doesn't bother you when it's drama, but comedy ... I suppose that hits you where you live."

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

Bill Murray?

You confused Steve Martin with Bill Murray?

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

You confused Steve Martin with Bill Murray?

No, YOU did.

Steve Martin was the sadistic dentist who died of laughing gas overdose.

Bill Murray was his masochistic patient.

Turn in your nerd card.

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

Bill Murray was in the movie? I didn't even know. I refused to watch the movie dubbed to Spanish when I was a kid (crappily dubbed songs? No thanks) and only managed to see a few clips of the songs on Youtube a few times.

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

oh man, i love that movie.
I just called you and told you that.

seriously though, i feel this movie is kind of perfect, and yes, the dark ending feels hollow.

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I don't mind alternate endings like this.

The fact that no good color print of it exists makes me sad.

[captaintwinings.livejournal.com]

One time in fifth grade when my teacher said we could pick a movie to watch at the end of class on Friday, this was my suggestion. But for some reason, we ended up watching Balto. I maintain that Mrs. Barnes should have listened to me.

I was so distressed when I saw the stage show. And if I don't like the bad ending, you know there's something wrong. But that production was still pretty awesome. The Audrey II was played by a woman with the most powerful voice I've ever heard, which made for some interesting new dynamics.

[sara-lakali.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I worked on a production of LSOH in college (which was an education in more ways than one). I remember watching the movie on video as part of the project and being rather disappointed that our version wasn't like that.

[neilfein.livejournal.com]

Seymour is a murderer, and doesn't deserve a happy ending. Audrey... of course she doesn't deserve this, but having her ask to be fed to the plant was a wonderfully surreal moment.

The "Don't Feed the Plants" ending montage doesn't work at all... when you watch it straight through. With end titles superimposed, though, despite the weak song (which I always skip over on the movie cast album anyway), it would have been fine.

Speaking of songs, there are two from the stage version I mss: The song the dentist sings while dying--good but too long for the film. "Mushnik and Son" would have worked very well with the darker ending. (Somewhat proving your point, actually: Pulling that song makes the happy ending a better fit.)

I personally prefer the darker ending, even with the film as it is. The ending in the film always felt hollow and tacked-on, an appeasement to a spoon-fed test audience.

Fortunately, with DVD branching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamless_branching) technology, we should be able to make a choice about this. (Whether such a disc would ever released is another matter.)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

But how bad are the deaths? Orin is an abusive psycho who was VERY ready to kill Seymour himself, or at least torture him. As for Mr. Mushnik, he was ready to blackmail Seymour for Orin's death in order to gain the fortune for Audrey II for himself! That's a change from the original play, where Mushnik was just going to turn Seymour in. In that case, yes, it was murder. But the film changes it to make Mushnik far from innocent in his own way, and thereby take the heat off Seymour for preserving himself. In both cases, Seymour is a little guy who found himself sucked into WAY more than he bargained for, and the changes made for the film make him less deserving of being punished.

Now, if they kept all of "The Meek Shall Inherit," that'd be a different story altogether! But they didn't, so it doesn't count. The film doesn't have him make the conscious decision to keep feeding people to the plant so Audrey will still love him, but if it did, then yes, the darker ending for him would be deserved.

In all cases, no, Audrey doesn't deserve that. Surreal isn't enough to make up for that, especially not the way Ellen Greene plays her. She didn't deserve that.