In 1978
Alan Menken and
Howard Ashman created a new musical take on Roger Corman's 1960 film Little Shop Of Horrors, which became a Broadway hit. Both involve a man-eating, Venus flytrap-inspired plant named Audrey II, raised in a skid-row flower shop into a massive beast with excessive chloroplast (testosterone?) levels. Though the film was inventive and campy,
Menken and
Ashman's music music - a mix of doo-wop and lavish songs along the lines of Rocky Horror Picture Show -- made the show's fun hilarious, its thrills outrageously gruesome. The soundtrack to Frank Oz's 1987 film adaptation carries on the musical's spirit:
Steve Martin's rendition of "Dentist," about a demented psychopath who drills mouths (not just teeth) without novocaine, is achingly funny. "Downtown" is a full-powered choir of the slums;
Rick Moranis works for an uptight flower shop manager ("He took me in, gave me shelter, a bed, crust of bread and a job, treats me like dirt and calls me a slob, which I am.")
Martin and
Moranis' sincere if limited singing is charming, and
Ellen Greene returns as the original Audrey from the Broadway version; the way she belts out earth-shakingly high notes is bewildering, particularly on the lovely duet with
Moranis, "Suddenly Seymour."
The Four Tops'
Levi Stubbs is a scene-stealer as Audrey II, particularly on the new track, the raunchy, boisterous finale "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space"; since film nominations must be new songs, it was added in hopes of an Academy Award (and did indeed receive a nomination.) When Disney added a tribute to
Howard Ashman on the Beauty and the Beast credits after his death in 1992, it read: "To
Ashman who gave a Mermaid her voice and a Beast his soul." He also gave a plant its appetite. ~ Peter Fawthrop