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| Home Alone | |
|---|---|
 Home Alone Movie Poster | |
| Directed by | Chris Columbus |
| Written by | John Hughes |
| Produced by | John Hughes |
| Starring | Macaulay Culkin Joe Pesci Daniel Stern John Heard and Catherine O'Hara |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release dates | November 16, 1990 (USA) |
| Running time | 103 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15,000,000 US (est.) |
Home Alone is a classic 1990 comedy film starring Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an eight-year-old who is mistakenly left behind when his family flies to France for a Christmas vacation. While initially relishing his time alone, he is later threatened with two house burglars, whom he outwits by rigging the house with booby traps.
Most of the film was shot in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Illinois and Wilmette, Illinois. Any other shots, such as those of Paris, are either stock footage or faked.
The film made Macaulay Culkin a celebrity. The film also features Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as the "Wet Bandits," a bumbling pair of burglars named Harry and Marv who try to rob the McCallister home, believing it to be an easy mark with the family absent. Harry is best known for saying "fujja wujja" when ever pain is inflicted on him. The duo, unfortunately for themselves, run into numerous booby traps set by the resourceful Kevin throughout the house. It becomes apparent, however, that although they may get knocked back, they are getting stronger. Catherine O'Hara, Roberts Bossom, and John Heard also co-star.
Minor roles are played by Gerry Bamman, Devin Ratray, Kieran Culkin (Macaulay's younger brother), Michael C. Maronna, Hillary Wolf, and Angela Goethals. In addition, John Candy, a frequent collaborator of writer/producer John Hughes, has a supporting role as a polka band player. John Williams created the musical score, which was nominated for an Oscar.
Plot
Template:Spoiler After an argument with his family the night, Kevin McCallister wishes his family would simply disappear. After a powerline failure which neutralizes all the alarm clocks, the rest of the family rushes to leave suburban Chicago to go on a Christmas vacation to France. Subsequently, Kevin is accidentally left home alone and experiences what it is like to be independent for the first time. This independence has some good sides (such as being able to sleep in his parents' king-sized bed) and some bad sides (such as having to go into the scary basement alone). He also is wary of his neighbor, Marley, a.k.a. "The South Bend Shovel Slayer", a supposed-murderer who eerily keeps to himself. The two end up meeting at church on Christmas Eve, and Marley turns out to be a good person, who didn't murder his family, but had a fight with them, especially his son, and now lives in seclusion over the fear of what might happen if he talks to them again. Kevin suggests that Marley try to contact them and make up, since things aren't going to get any better for him or his family if he does nothing.
The last third of the film deals with Kevin's discovery of the Wet Bandits' plans to loot his house and how he stops them from achieving this goal with traps made from household objects, including an iron to the face, a nail through the foot, a red-hot doorknob, and paint cans flung from the top of the stairs, even firing on them with his older brother's BB gun.
Eventually, the Wet Bandits — inhumanly bruised and battered by all of Kevin's traps — are able to get into the house and capture Kevin. Just as they are contemplating how they plan to carry out their revenge on Kevin, Marley arrives to smack each of the burglars on the head with his shovel, knocking them out until the police arrive to take them into custody. Kevin is finally reunited with his family, with his mother succeeding in escaping the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport during a blizzard. In the last scene, Marley, reunited with his family too, waves to Kevin and smiles, then Buzz shouts about Kevin messing up his room, reflecting one of the events that happened earlier in the film.
Characters
The main characters include:
- Kevin McCallister — (Macaulay Culkin) an eight-year-old kid living in suburban Chicago whose parents accidentally leave him at home when they go on a family vacation to Paris.
- Harry Lyme — (Joe Pesci) the smarter of the two criminals known as the "Wet Bandits," whose plan it is to loot every house on the McCallister's wealthy suburban neighborhood before the residents come home from their Christmas vacations.
- Marv Murchens — (Daniel Stern) the sillier of the two "Wet Bandits." He foolishly leaves the water taps running in every house he and Harry rob (hence the Wet Bandits name) in order to become famous. But his smart side also comes to the surface at one point when he tries to persuade Harry not to try robbing the McCallisters' house with Kevin there.
- Old Man Marley — (Roberts Blossom) the neighborhood salt man who is viewed as the alleged "South Bend Shovel Slayer."
- Kate McCallister — (Catherine O'Hara) Kevin McCallister's mother. Loses her son and gets stuck in a blizzard at the airport in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She desperately tries to get back to him at all costs, even if she has to "sell her soul to the devil himself."
Injuries suffered by robbers
Harry
- Shot in the crotch with a BB gun.
- Slipped twice on the slippery front concrete steps.
- Burned his palm on the red-hot door handle, leaving a scar in the shape of the M on the knob.
- Head burnt by a blow torch.
- Walked straight into a glue-covered piece of Saran Wrap, then blasted in the face by feathers.
- Head hit by a paint can, knocking his gold tooth out in the process.
- Tripped over a wire and hurt his back.
- Whacked in the chest with a crowbar by Marv, who was trying to kill Buzz's tarantula, Axl.
- Slammed into brick wall after Kevin cut the rope he was holding on to.
- Whacked in the face by Marley with a snow shovel.
Marv
- Shot in the forehead with a BB gun.
- Slipped down the icy concrete stairs that led to Kevin's basement.
- Smashed in the face by an iron.
- Stepped on a long nail barefoot, after losing his shoes and socks on the tar-covered stairs leading upstairs from the basement.
- Fell down tar-covered stairs and landed flat on his back after stepping on long nail barefoot.
- Slips on icy concrete landing, making crowbar fall on his head.
- Steps on baubles and sharp Christmas ornaments barefoot.
- Had Axl the tarantula put on his face by Kevin, which although not actually hurting him, scared him silly.
- Whacked three times by Harry in the arm with the same crowbar Marv had already hit him with.
- Whacked in the back of the head by Marley with the same snow shovel.
Both
- Slipped on Micro Machines at the foot of the stairs.
- Hit in the face by paint cans while climbing the stairs (Harry winds up losing his gold tooth, which infuriates him).
- Hit against the outside wall after Kevin cuts the rope they were hanging from.
According to a study done by Mick Foley for his book Foley is Good, many of the injuries suffered in this movie would have resulted in serious injury and/or death.
Taglines
- A Family Comedy Without The Family.
- When the McAllister family left on their Christmas vacation, they forgot one small thing...Kevin.
Video games
Home Alone video games were released for eight video game systems: NES, Sega Genesis, SNES, Sega Game Gear, Game Boy, Sega Master System, Amiga and PC.
- The first Home Alone game was released in November 1991.
- The Home Alone NES game is a cult classic game beloved in vintage game circles for its odd gameplay, quirky glitches, and near-impossible difficulty.
- The Home Alone game on the SNES system was the first to use screen captures and character's voices from the movie in its gameplay.
Sequels
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
- Home Alone 3 (1997)
- Home Alone 4 (2002)
Culkin, Pesci, Stern, and most of the McCallister family members only appeared in the first sequel. Home Alone 3 had an entirely different plotline and cast, whereas Home Alone 4 was a continuation of the first two movies, but with completely different actors.
Box office
In its opening weekend, Home Alone made $17 million from 1,202 theaters, averaging $14,211 per site and just 6% of the final total. In total, its cinema run grossed $477,561,243 worldwide.
By the time it had run its course in theaters, Home Alone was the third highest grossing movie of all time, according to the home video box.
Home Alone proved so popular that it stayed in theaters well past the Christmas season, and stayed at the #1 spot at the box office from the weekend of November 16-18, 1990 (when it was released) through the weekend of February 1-3, 1991. It would remain a top 10 draw at the box office until the weekend of April 26 that year, which was well past Easter weekend. It would make two more appearances in the top 10 (the weekend of May 31-June 2 and the weekend of June 14-16) before falling out of the top 10 for good.
Trivia
- The role of Marv and Harry were reportedly offered to Robert De Niro and Danny DeVito respectively. De Niro and DeVito turned them down in favour of Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci, the latter happening to be a close friend of De Niro.
- The gangster movies watched by Kevin in Home Alone (called Angels with Filthy Souls) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (Angels with Even Filthier Souls) are not real movies but rather specially created footage, inspired by 1938 Oscar-nominee Angels with Dirty Faces.
- The film that the family is watching while at their Uncle Rob's house in France is It's a Wonderful Life (1946) in French. The scene shown is when George Bailey tells Mr. Potter he doesn't need 24 hours to think over his offer and the answer's no.
- The issue of Playboy magazine that Kevin finds in Buzz's room is from July 1989. The centerfold for that month was Erika Eleniak.
- The car that "Santa" (the guy Kevin talks to about getting his family back) starts before it stalls out is a 1980 Honda Civic hatchback.
- The posters and DVD cases for the movie had Culkin with his hands on his face and screaming, based on the famous painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.
- In Kevin Smith's 1999 film Dogma, Salma Hayek's character, Serendipity claims that, while she was responsible for nineteen of the top twenty highest-grossing movies of all time, she had nothing to do with this film's success (going further to claim that someone sold their soul, possibly referring to John Hughes, who was mentioned by Jay earlier in the film) to get the grosses up. ("The one about the kid, by himself in his house, burglars trying to get in and he fights them off? I had nothing to do with that one. Somebody sold their soul to Satan to get the grosses up on that piece of shit.")
- In an episode of Seinfeld, George (Jason Alexander) weeps when watching Home Alone at Jerry's apartment, claiming that the old man character "got to him."
- Home Alone is one of the films parodied in Spy Hard.
- The McAllisters' house is in Winnetka, Illinois on Lincoln Boulevard.
- Professional Wrestler turned author Mick Foley referenced this movie and its sequel Home Alone 2 to prove that a PG rated movie is more violent than an episode of Monday Night Raw.
- During a special week of Late Night with Conan O'Brien filmed in Chicago, there was a segment that featured the show's announcer Joel Godard visiting the locations of famous films set in Chicago. It was in one of these episodes that the McAllister home was featured, and had Godard reenact the break-in that occurred in the movie. Godard opened a window, leading to an expression of fear as the unseen owner shoots Joel with a shotgun. The camera fades to black and cuts to a memorial to Joel, stating he was born in 1911 and died in 2006.
- When Harry was showing Marv when the automatic timers on the houses would go on, he pointed out the Murphy's house as number 663, but when Kevin called the police trying to lure them to the same house, he described it as "656 Lincoln Blvd."
- In the scene when Harry and Marv were robbing the Murphy house, Kevin's father calls and instructs "Chuck Murphy" to "call us in Paris". Why would Kevin's father call the Murphy house when they knew they were in Florida?
- In the scene when the family just gets on the plane, "Uncle Frank" asks for champaign and must be assured by the flight attendent that "it is free".
References
- Home Alone at BoxOfficeMojo.com
- Home Alone total gross at BoxOfficeMojo.com
See also
- Uncle Buck - has similar characteristics (e.g. Macaulay Culkin, John Candy, similar house, etc.)
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York - A sequel to this movie also starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.
- Home Alone 3 - A sequel to this movie with totally different cast and characters.
- Home Alone: Taking Back the House - The final sequel to this movie with the same characters as in this and its sequel only with different cast.