MOVIE Reviews-"Little Shop of Horrors" and "The Thing About My Folks"

The Kaitlyn Mae Book Blog ^ | 1/8/07 | Pat Fish

[Fishtalk]

It's campy and kookie and I loved the Broadway show. Here's a review of the MOVIE "Little Shop of Horrors".

The best thing about the movie "The Thing About My Folks" is a certain actor's acting.

The rest of the film just doesn't make sense.

And guess what's coming up soon?

[aruanan]

”Little Shop of Horrors”

1960 folks. This film was produced in 1960. I was ten years old.

It had been a stage musical then this movie came out and at some point in time I saw either the original musical or this film but I can’t remember which came first.

Thus many readers may not have ever heard of this musical/movie, particularly those of tender years.

By me it’s still a classic, a hoot, campy, cool, neato and filled with some truly great songs.

The remake of the film was not 1960. The Jack Nicholson version is the 1960 one. The remake (which includes Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist) is the one to watch.

[Fishtalk]

Dear Lord. Thanks so much for the correction.

The one with STEVE Martin IS the one I watched.

I will correct the Blog.

[aruanan]

From IMDB:

Goofs: Continuity: The original ending of the movie was to have both Audrey and Seymore die. In the off-Broadway version, Seymour feeds Audrey to the plant (so that she can be "somewhere that's green"). Because they re-wrote the ending, there's a scene where, after Seymour saves Audrey from the plant, Audrey has blood on her wedding dress. When we cut back to Audrey, the blood is gone.

And in the original 1960 version, Nicholson is one of the dental patients, not even the main character.

The singing in the 1986 version looks like real, not dubbed, singing.

[supercat]

The singing in the 1986 version looks like real, not dubbed, singing.

Perhaps the people actually were singing while on set so as to look like they were singing, but movie song and dance numbers are practically always lip-synced; even if people sing on set the performance won't be recorded.

The reason for this is that films are assembled using pieces of many different takes. With spoken dialog, it's possible to piece together a soundtrack from a few different takes (which may or may not be the takes that appear on screen) and have it sound good. With musical numbers it's often harder and there's no way of knowing before editing whether it's going to work. Consequently, music is generally recorded and edited first, and then played back on set during filming.

BTW, West Side Story is somewhat curious: there, the actors recorded the songs and shot the film, and then other people redubbed the singing afterward. Personally I preferred Natalie Wood's singing (what I've heard of it) to Marni Nixon (her replacement). While she may not have been a great singer, her performance seemed to match her on-screen persona much better.

[supercat]

The remake of the film was not 1960. The Jack Nicholson version is the 1960 one. The remake (which includes Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist) is the one to watch.

I think both films are worth watching. To be sure, the original doesn't achieve the level of technical brilliance of the remake (some of the long master shots are pretty amazing. As Audrey sings the end of "Somewhere that's green" a crane shot tracks out of her window, down along the street, and then up to a rooftop where the Chiffons begin their next number; they get all the way through the first verse before the next shot.

BTW, technical trivia: the shot where the plant grows in size was not done using CGI or anything of the sort, nor even double photography/matting. The plant was behind the flower pot on a track; to make the plant get bigger, they slid it toward the camera. This principle was used 80+ years ago (though with double photography) in George Méliès' "The Man with the Rubber Head".

[aruanan]

Perhaps the people actually were singing while on set so as to look like they were singing, but movie song and dance numbers are practically always lip-synced; even if people sing on set the performance won't be recorded.

Sure, like in music videos. But I think it was really Rick Moranis and Audrey's voices and the overdubs were extremely well done.