Little Shop of Horrors Deleted Scenes Leaked

[Wililmz]

Not sure it's very helpful, but I attempted to clean up the audio from the little shop of horrors August 1986 workprint
https://mega.nz/file/OxkjHKCQ#Sfxjr_IqP ... IPqU1cLqWY

[ashmanfanboy]

Not sure it's very helpful, but I attempted to clean up the audio from the little shop of horrors August 1986 workprint
https://mega.nz/file/OxkjHKCQ#Sfxjr_IqP ... IPqU1cLqWY

Thank you so much for this!

Prefer this score overall to the final one with a few exceptions... post-first customer has a better fanfare and the Somewhere That's Green/Sudden Changes callback just doesn't work here without the adoption subplot.

Criminal that the Sturm und Drang gospel vocals didn't make it, though they don't sound like Campbell/Arnold/Weeks (maybe an artifact 1985 demo track?). Interesting how they played with the beat from Dentist. More of it could have given a stronger Tell-Tale Heart vibe.

This might just be my favorite mix of Mean Green Mother. That part after the intro where the pot breaks, the music stops and we get an isolated triumphant Twoey laugh is absolute GOLD. Alternate pod vocals, more feminine a la the soundtrack... I like the operatic ululating when they harmonize. Still a shame how many Ashman lyrics got cut and the Purple People Eater sax solo deserves to be here, though that may have been a product of the reshoots.

Don't Feed the Plants is close to perfect length here, though it really needs all its lyrics and less comedic editing than what was in the John Smith cut. Really wish they had given the full track to the Urchins, it feels like a different movie without them... Hopefully someday Twoey's "That's All Folks!" will leak.

The original cut of Orin's death is DARK. Like, the theatrical cut of that scene is dark, but the original cut is DARK. The different editing and the rather drastically different delivery of his last several lines (achieved via redubbing for the theatrical cut) really does drastically change the tone.

If I'm not mistaken, it's also the longest stretch of the movie without music. Removing Just the Gas breaks the flow and something is lost.

[Wililmz]

you're welcome! This workprint is the main reason I got into collecting in 2013. I do hope a cleaner video would appear eventually. If it does show up, I'm definitly making it my first restoration proect

[Garrett Gilchrist]

well, for example ...
https://archive.org/details/lsoh8221986
https://archive.org/details/lsoh1011986

[Wililmz]

well, for example ...
https://archive.org/details/lsoh8221986
https://archive.org/details/lsoh1011986

Thanks a bunch for the sources! will be working on the restoration starting next year

[Garrett Gilchrist]

The 8/22 WP predates the reshoots. Mushnik's death and the disposing of Orin's body are uncensored here, for instance. (This was seen in other leaked workprints, where Seymour clearly makes the decision that Mushnik should die -- something obfuscated in the reedits.) The original proposal also present. The Meek Shall Inherit dream has already been cut, and Don't Feed the Plants has been cut down to almost (but not quite) nothing -- essentially a trailer for itself, with the "That's All Folks!" ending ....


The 10/1 WP is after the reshoots.

[OldBenKenobi]

well, for example ...
https://archive.org/details/lsoh8221986
https://archive.org/details/lsoh1011986

Oooooh! Very cool! Thanks for sharing.

The 8/22 WP predates the reshoots. Mushnik's death and the disposing of Orin's body are uncensored here, for instance. (This was seen in other leaked workprints, where Seymour clearly makes the decision that Mushnik should die -- something obfuscated in the reedits.) The original proposal also present. The Meek Shall Inherit dream has already been cut, and Don't Feed the Plants has been cut down to almost (but not quite) nothing -- essentially a trailer for itself, with the "That's All Folks!" ending ....

The 10/1 WP is after the reshoots.

Interesting. The 8/22 one is after the test screening, and has been lightened up somewhat in editing, eh?... I guess it was Frank Oz's attempt to get the film prepared for the reshoots that were to follow...

Orin's body getting chopped up was definitely cut down compared to the John Smith version. I'll have to directly compare them myself, but I think it basically matches the theatrical cut, albeit with rather different sound.
The 8/22 ending (everything after he feed Audrey to Audrey II) is absolutely nuts to watch. Completely hacked to bits. It's weird as hell. Also, what the fuck was the "That's all folks!" version of the burst-out?! That's absolutely crazy! XD

In any case, very interesting to have! And the footage being a better transfer than the shitty one we have of the early August workprint is very cool, as is the cleaner sound. I'm particlarly happy to see an actually-decent transfer of the original proposal. Very useful for my reconstruction... if that reconstruction is needed, that is. (See below)

--

Also, NEWS:

Yesterday, Frank Oz did a Q&A accompanying a screening of Little Shop from an original 35mm theatrical print. He mentioned that he's been working with Warners on a 4K restoration of the film due out next year, with a particular emphasis from him on working on the sound.

Now, from what I've read, the 2012 "Director's cut" Blu-ray was assembled without Frank Oz's involvement until it was already finished; they invited him to a screening and that was the first he'd heard of it. Even though it's clear his memory isn't perfect (40 years will do that to you), he said at the Q&A ten years ago that they'd originally intended the Don't Feed the Plants sequence to be shorter, and on the 1999 black-and-white special feature's commentary, he not only pointed this out, but talked about the lack of incidental music in that version, which can still be observed as a problem in the 2012 Blu-ray (the only cue between Audrey II eating Audrey and Mean Green Mother is a little ditty when the camera pans down to the Little Audrey II that Paul Dooley's character presents to Seymour; as we know from the workprints, there should've been a lot more music)... And that's without mentioning the ADR; between the early August, black-and-white, and director's cut versions of his scene, almost all of Paul Dooley's lines have at least a couple of different takes you can hear, even when the visuals are all the same.

Call me crazy, but I think we might be hearing about an official restoration of at least some of what we're seeing in the early August and John Smith workprints... Hoping for Meek in full myself, but honestly I'd be happy to see them just reinstate the finished edit of that last reel of the film, rather than the crappy, rough version we got on the Blu-ray... (And I don't just mean Don't Feed The Plants; Mean Green Mother's different edit, particularly the actually longer bit of Seymour getting eaten, is much better in the early August version)

I would also point out that the "Director's cut" version of Mean Green Mother was a somewhat different mix from the early August and "Director's cut" versions, and of course, we're all aware of the different sound effects etc. in Don't Feed The Plants...

[sonicbeta3]

Excuse me, where is John Smith, anyway?

[Garrett Gilchrist]

I can't really comment about John Smith, who wished to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, and who did not reveal his identity.

There was an interview before the "Director's Cut" came out, where Frank Oz was apparently convinced that the material no longer existed in color, and that anything outside of that black and white ending had been discarded very early on (Meek Shall Inherit, etc) ... and was now a vague memory at best.

When the Director's Cut came out, the John Smith / Great Movies workprint edits were released in protest, since the DC had clearly been based on the black and white DVD workprint ending ONLY, and nothing else had leaked publicly up til that point. That means that any deleted scene that's not part of the ending didn't get remastered for that release.

Now that more stuff has leaked publicly, MAYBE someone will be interested in releasing a version that incorporates that material in remastered form, but I'm not holding my breath. I don't know what Frank Oz has seen, or what the producers of this theoretical remix have seen, or what anyone involved actually cares about.

Releasing some version of the original ending was obviously the big prize, and I'm glad it was done at all, but fans know they could have done more, and made different decisions. (Although without Frank Oz involved, that could have been controversial.)

[Jbraga97]

I don't expect they'll put the effort into much re-editing and reinserting of scenes that were cut. Cool as it is, cutting the Meek dream sequence was the right move. That said, I'd love to see it as a bonus feature along with the rest of the leaked material.

The only alterations I'd really hope for are:
-Fixing John Candy's silent Da-Doo moment
-Fixing the fade from Twoeys mouth to Seymours bed after the feeding scene. Wtf happened here, how did they screw these things up, weren't they just tacking the alternate ending on?
-And I don't expect this one, but the alternate proposal scene should have been reinserted. We lose the Suddenly Seymour reprise altogether in the DC.

There are a lot of little details about the directors cut that make me wish it had gotten just a little more time and attention. Hopefully some of this will be addressed in a 4K release.