Where Have All the Corpse Flowers Gone? Remembering "The Little Shop of Horrors"

I’m not convinced that Roger Corman ever saw (or even heard of) a Corpse Flower. But I have. This past Sunday I was lucky enough to catch the rare blooming of Amorphophallus titanium at the Huntington, that being a marvelous rare book library and botanical garden in San Marino, California. In case you’re interested, the so-called Corpse Flower is actually the world’s largest unbranched inflorescence. Its bloom can grow over twelve feet in height and can open to a width of four feet across. It’s a tropical plant that comes originally from Sumatra; its gruesome name refers to the stench it gives off when in flower, similar (it is said) to the smell of a rotting corpse. In the wild, insects attracted to this pungent scent arrive in time to pollinate the flower during its short blooming period, which may last a mere 24 hours. Lucky me, that I arrived just in time to see (and smell) this stinky marvel of the natural world.

 The one I saw blooming in the Huntington’s Conservatory has been nicknamed Odorysseus, not Audrey Junior. And I’m happy to report that no one was swallowed up by the gaping purple petals while I was around. Still, I couldn’t help thinking about the giant carnivorous plant immortalized by director Roger Corman and his inimitable screenwriter, Charles B. Griffith, back in 1960, when they discovered that they could have a full weekend to make use of a standing set that was about to be torn down. Their horror comedy, The Little Shop of Horrors, soon attracted millions of fans (most of them young and ready for anything) to drive-ins and low-rent movie houses, and soon became a late-night staple on the brand-new medium of television. Not all the actors in Little Shop went on to fame and fortune, but the name Jack Nicholson should ring a bell. (No, despite what I sometimes see in print, Nicholson did NOT have the leading role of hapless flower-shop underling Seymour Krelboined, but his tiny part as a masochist in a dentist’s chair is hard to forget.)

 Two young fans of Corman’s 72-minute film turned out to have real musical talent. In 1982, composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman launched an off-Broadway musical adaptation so infectious that it soon moved to Broadway and London’s West End. (It also became hugely popular in high schools and community theatres throughout the world; I’d be surprised to hear that there’s no production of it going on somewhere at this very moment.) In 1986, Hollywood got into the act, with Frank Oz of Muppet fame directing an elaborate big-budget version boasting Rick Moranis in the leading role, Steve Martin, John Candy, and Bill Murray in featured parts, and an ending that softened the grotesque outcome of the original.

 In my years as Roger Corman’s story editor, I had no immediate connection with the Little Shop film. Nor with the child-friendly 1991 animated TV series whose gore was toned down for the younger set. But in the early 1990s Roger toyed with the idea of launching a Little Shop sitcom: writers were hired and I remember some meetings at Fox studios with rather thick-headed young execs before we all gave up. I also remember the frustration of Chuck Griffith and others regarding the debut of the stage musical: because Roger had assured the producers that all the members of the original cast and crew were dead, none of them was invited to the show’s world premiere. Roger’s baseless assertion, I can’t help thinking, was an act as ghoulish as anything a Corpse Flower could claim.

 

                                          Odorysseus at the Huntington, 7/12/26