Book:
Green Thoughts
By John Collier

Film:
Little Shop Of Horrors (1960)
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

This short story written by John Collier was the basis of the Roger Corman cult classic Little Shop of Horrors which would later become a Broadway musical and a hit film of the same name. John Collier is an award winning writer who has written short stories, novels and some of the great screenplays of our time to include The African Queen and I Am A Camera. Many of his short stories would be used for episodes of the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits and Alfred Hitchcock Presents and turned into hit Hollywood film.


1960 Original film was directed by Roger Corman who was dared to shoot a film over two days. Quickly putting a script together with an idea based on John Collier’s short story which he read and loved and adding elements from his other two favourite authors Arthur C Clark and HG Wells. Corman took inspiration from the orchid bulb which grows quite large but when splits and buds has a tongue like pistil which would enable the plant to speak. Later they gave it a Venus fly trap look but leaves of the orchid and inner colourings of the orchid.

Directed by Frank Oz and based on the hit off Broadway musical of the same name. Little Shop of Horrors was filmed on the Albert R. Broccoli 007 Stage at the Pinewood Studios in England, where a "downtown" set, complete with overhead train track, was constructed. Produced on a budget of $25 million, in contrast to the original 1960 film, which, according to Corman, only cost $30,000, it was well received by critics and audiences alike, eventually developing a cult following. The film's original 23-minute finale, based on the musical's ending, was rewritten and reshot after test audiences did not react positively to it.] For years only available as black-and-white workprint footage, the original ending was fully restored in 2012 by Warner Home Video.

Opening Credits; Introduction (2.44); Forming the Plot (9.35); Introducing a Film: Little Shop of Horrors (1960) (24.12); Film Trailer (27.11); Lights, Camera, Action (28.37); Introducing a Film: Little Shop of Horrors (1986) (44.15); Film Trailer (50.04) Lights Camera, Action (52.08); End Credits (1:21.36); Closing Credits (1:27.36)

Opening Credits - It’s Christmas Eve – taken from the album A Christmas Horror Story by Alex Kashkin– Classical Jingle by Dan Hughes

Music Interludes and Closing Credits – Prologue: Little Shop of Horrors, Da Doo, Skid Row (Downtown), Don’t Feed the Plants – from Little Shop of Horrors Original Broadway Production. Copyright `1982 – Geffen Company courtesy of Menken and Ashman.

Suddenly Seymour – taken from the original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Copyright `1986 Geffen Records – courtesy of Menken and Ashman

Original Music copyrighted 2020 Dan Hughes Music and the Literary License Podcast.

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All songs used with permission

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