The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

"I didn't mean it!"

Ah, I love me a good old low budget piece of retro fun. I only actually watched this as preparation for the musical remake, which is coming next, but there are much worse ways of spending late afternoon on a Friday. It may not be The Godfather, there's no real depth or subtext to it, and it looks as though it cost about $4.40, but it's bloody funny. And filming in black and white can paper over a multitude of budgetary sins, most of the time.

The film is a black comedy, with increasing amounts of farce. The customer who starts munching on carnations in the first few minutes tells us that this is going to be a very silly film indeed. It's gloriously camp; all the characters are grotesques, and all of them have delightfully silly names that the film just revels in. Seymour's hypochondriac mother and the mad, scary dentist (is this the birth of a trope?)  are both personal favourites of mine, but the best of them has to be Jack Nicholson's unforgettable cameo as Wilbur force, a man with a massive, masochistic craving for dental torture. He spends a most enjoyable afternoon, which I suppose makes Seymour some kind of dominatrix. Hmm.

Seymour's accidental murders get increasingly silly, with the last one positively revelling in its silliness; Seymour doesn't have a coin so he flips a rock. And accidentally kills the poor gorgeous lady trying to seduce him by missing the ground and throwing it clumsily at her head. it's funny because you can see it coming. And what's this about all these women throwing themselves at Seymour? I want some of his irresistible sexual magnetism, dammit.

There's a good reason why this film is thought of so fondly. As always, it's the script and the performances. If those two things are bloody good, as they are here, then any faults elsewhere don't matter so much. It's interesting to compare this with, say, Plan 9 from Outer Space. Both are cheap. Both are hilarious viewing. But one of them is actually good and the other one… isn't.

One slight oddity, mind. I know I'm British, but surely the dialogue indicates that the film is set in LA, and a lot of characters seem to have New York accents?