"The web has resurrected a rare alternate ending to a 1986 musical about a monstrous, blood-sucking plant.Click through to watch Part I, Part II, and Part III. If you're a movie fan like me, you should find it fascinating. I loved the movie version of "Little Shop" (and used to listen to the soundtrack in the car so much it wore out the cassette). The puppetry is still impressive as hell, too. Had they made this movie in the last few years, it would have been all CGI and, I think, would have lost a lot of its charm.
The spectacular 24-minute sequence shows an army of giant plants rampaging past city skyscrapers, overturning cars, swallowing railroads, and demolishing New York City, Godzilla-style. The U.S. army discovers the plants are bulletproof, and as helicopters flee, the plants swarm over the statue of Liberty.
It cost $5 million, took 11 months to produce, and has never been released.
Well, almost never."
And what a cast! Steve Martin and Bill Murray in the same scene.
There's just so much right with that clip. Classic.
Sadly, it wasn't until I read the post over 10 Zen Monkeys that I realized that Levi Stubbs - voice of Audry II and singer from the 4 Tops - had recently passed away. I won't lie, I'd always wished I'd had his voice. Back in high school, I used to daydream that there'd be a production of "Little Shop" and I would wow everybody by being able to - despite being 98 lbs and barely having the lung capacity to blow out a candle - do a spot-on impression of Levi Stubbs. And then I would get popular and girls would like me.
I was a dork.
Anyway, I did a search for Levi Stubbs and the first clip that came up was this one of Aretha Franklyn doing a tribute to him.
Considering how he looked, I didn't think he was going to sing. But he did.
Maybe it was seeing him in that condition, or maybe it was the old me hearing traces of his old voice, or perhaps it was the actor in me knowing how hard it can be to leave the stage and how much that night must have meant to him or maybe it was the way his bandmates kept encouraging him. Or maybe it was that last note he tried to hit.
Whatever it was, by the end, I was crying like a baby.
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