One thing ya gotta say about Warner Home Video: they
do listen to what the fans want. I read their transcript from last year about live-action titles, and darned if most of them are already out in stores (or soon to be out!) This year's transcript promised fans a major Kubrick re-release, with each title getting a two-disc treatment. Plus, Kenneth Branagh's
Hamlet (which Warner now owns), which has been eagerly anticipated since the dawn of DVD, is finally coming out this August in a 2-disc SE. It will also be part of (and this is what I'm REALLY excited about
) a Shakespeare box set which will include Laurence Olivier's
Othello (1966) AND...my two all-time favorite adaptations of Shakespeare on film:
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), by famed stage director Max Reinhardt, featuring the music of Mendholsson, and with an all-star cast including James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Joe E. Brown, Mickey Rooney and Dick Powell.
Romeo and Juliet (1936), directed by George Cuckor, and starring Leslie Howard, Norma Shearer, John Barrymore, Basil Rathbone and Andy Devine.
This summer and fall is really gonna hurt my wallet!!
But Warners are still hazy about
Little Shop of Horrors with the original ending (which is faithful to the play). In last year's chat, they said it was a very strong possibility that it would be coming out. This year they seemed to have acted surprised that so many people are clamoring for it (yours truly among them). Ultimately it comes down to David Geffen, who produced the film, and holds the rights to the ending. Back in 1998, when
Little Shop first hit DVD, the ending was included as an extra, in a rough, grainy b&W workprint, with some effects and music missing. Within a week or so, Geffen ordered all DVDs pulled from the shelves, since he apparently didn't give the go-ahead. But plenty fell into collector's hands (alas, I didn't have a DVD player at the time, so I never got it), and now these rare discs crop up on ebay from time to time at astronomical prices.
I
did see the ending recently on youtube, and I must say, it is really worth putting back into the film. If you've seen the movie, the original ending begins when Audrey II chomps down on Audrey. Seymour arrives and pulls her out of the plant. Unlike the theatrical cut, however, Audrey dies in Seymour's arms, and, per her wishes, is fed to the plant. Seymour then climbs a rooftop and attempts to jump, when he is interrupted by sleazy entropeneur Patrick Martin (Paul Dooley), who wants to snip buds off of Audrey II, and sell them across America. In the theatrical cut, after Audrey somehow regains her strength and will to live after a reprise of "Suddenly Seymour," Martin appears, but is instead played by Jim Belushi. Actually, Dooley's take on the character is funnier, and he has better lines than Belushi (much of Dooley's dialogue is taken from the play). Seymour now realizes he must destroy the plant before it takes over the world. He enters the flower shop, and we return to the theatrical cut and "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" (without the cut-aways to Audrey of course, who is dead and in the plant). At the end of the song, the plant pulls the shop down around Seymour. Then it picks him up, wraps its vines around him, and devours him. After a beat, Audrey II spits out Seymour's glasses. Now we get the true finale of the movie, which cost a pretty penny back in '86, with gullible people purchasing their own Audrey II's, only to have them grow and take over. Soon there's a nightmarish, Godzilla/King Kong-like scene, of giant plants wrecking havoc in cities across America, while the three street urchins/Greek chorus sing the warning "Don't Feed the Plants." The last shot of the film is of a laughing Audrey II, as the camera gets closer and closer to its open mouth, as if we in the audience are about to be eaten. Once we're "inside" the darkness of the plant's mouth, the film ends. This whole ending runs 23 minutes (without credits).
Test audiences hated this ending. Director Frank Oz fought to keep it in, as having Seymour win would defeat the whole Faustian theme of the show. But Geffen overruled him. Oz was forced to scrap his costly ending, and substitute a happy one, with Seymour destroying the plant and marrying Audrey, which I always thought was a clumsy ending. To me, it's akin to having Tony live at the end of
West Side Story, the King surviving in
The King & I, or having Cliff stay in Berlin with Sally instead of leaving her in
Cabaret.
In recent years, Geffen has claimed he wants to release
Little Shop as originally conceived as a theatrical feature, followed by a DVD release. Well, last year was the 20th anniversary of the film, and no word. But it still remains one of Warner's most requested titles. The current DVD has everything the original had, EXCEPT the ending. The commentary is even the same, as Frank Oz says more than once "when you see the original ending included on this disc..." or "the ending you'll see in the extras was the one I originally wanted." So it's clear Frank wanted his film to be as faithful to the play as possible. Which it is...until the final 20 minutes or so. And the Bill Murray dentist scene isn't part of the show, either, but it is a very amusing sequence, probably my favorite in the film as it stands now.
So in Warner's Feb. chat, they didn't say yes and they didn't say no. They said it's something they are going to look into. But in this day, when so many movies are re-released with "exciting new scenes" or "alternate ending too shocking for theatres!",
Little Shop is one title certainly deserving of a redo. Not every extended edition of a movie is necessary. In the case of
Little Shop, it would be a chance for a director to get the film he wanted shown the way he intended it to be shown, over 20 years ago. Especially since movie musicals are back in vogue now.
And speaking of Warner animation, I'm waiting for more Golden Era Looney Tunes, preferably from the late 1930s/early 1940s.
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