THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960) ** Roger Corman demonstrates, on a dare, what can be done with two days and a leftover storefront set. High art it ain't, but funny it is. An immorality tale (from when Corman was satisfied with a little cleavage) with dialogue so insensitive as to leave one with a sense of having wandered amongst those of the dark side, despite the audaciously comic book sensitivities of the production. An L.A. tale in every imaginable sense, then. However juvenilely couched, several of the lines are very, very witty. The story dangles dreamlessly between hopelessly over-inflated theatrics that somehow anticipate Rocky Horror, and being a metaphor for what inevitably happens when you join the work force. Being how a lot of the fun is imagining the cameraderie of those demented enough to participate in the production, a high point in unquestionably Jack Nicholson's cameo as a masochistic dental patient in love with his own...ah, uniqueness. I can just imagine Corman sitting down young Jack and explaining, "So you're this nut who loves pain, so you just love going to the dentist. Can you do it?" Jack scrunches up his formidable eyebrows and sinister smile looks him straight in the eye with that Shining look, "Yeah, sure." Stars are born more often than they're recognized. Charles B. Griffith understands that you can get an audience to forgive a lot, if you just keep entertaining them with clever names. His work here is monumental in the field: Seymour Krelboin, Gravis Muchnick, Siddie Shiva, two cops named Frank Stoolie and Joe Fink, Audrey Fulquard, Burson Fouch and, last but certainly not least, Mrs. Hortense Feuchtwanger of the Society of Silent Flower Observers of Southern California. To tell the truth, the names are my very favourite part.
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