from film, to stage, back to film, and back to stage

I'm going to go ahead and assume that some, most, or hopefully all of you have seen the movie Little Shop of Horrors. This is a great film directed by Frank Oz, who has a pretty outstanding resume. Some of you may know him as a puppeteer and voice actor for The Muppets, or the voice of Yoda in Star Wars. He does not have much of a directing background, but this hit movie has been deemed a 'cult classic,' which is good, I think. But, where did this all start?

Way back in 1960, a man named Roger Corman directed and produced a movie in only two days. For those of you keeping score at home, thats a 70 minute feature-length movie that was shot in 48 hours. This was the last two days before the set that was used was to be taken down, as in the previous 5 days, Corman had just filmed another feature-length movie called Bucket of Blood. Wait, what?! That's right, Corman shot TWO movies in ONE week. Mind you, these were very low-budget films, and not highly enjoyable by today's standards, however I still find this a great feat. So I guess to get his money's worth out of the set, he decided to film a second movie rather than let the set go to waste with its final two days. Somehow, they wrote a script and shot the entire film in these two days, and the result was a far-fetched, quirky, interesting, and entertaining film. It even features a very young Jack Nicholson in his third Hollywood role he had ever played.

Next, this odd little movie became far more popular than they ever anticipated it to be, and years later (1982), a man named Howard Ashman adapted and wrote it into an off-broadway musical. Again, this production became far more popular than anyone had ever imagined, and was quickly re-adapted to film in 1986. This is where Frank Oz picked it up and made it into the film everyone thinks of today when they hear of Little Shop. Oz's rendition kept the stage style of the musical by using a limited number of sets, and lengthy wide shots, which Oz refers to as "master shots". One of these shots includes a ginormous crane up while a character runs up a flight of stairs mid-song. Unhappy with the first 31 takes, the 32nd was finally used. Anyways, this film had quite a historic journey before it came to be what we know today. Also, with the success of Oz's movie, the stage musical was then picked up by Broadway.

I can't decide what part of that history that I find most fascinating, but it does put into perspective how one seemingly small production can become such a big phenomenon.