Home Alone

Home Alone
The Home Alone movie poster is a parody of the Edvard Munch painting The Scream. (Poster includes the Ontario Film Review Board classification)
Directed by	Chris Columbus
Written by	John Hughes
Produced by	John Hughes
Starring	Macaulay Culkin Joe Pesci Daniel Stern John Heard Catherine O'Hara Roberts Blossom John Candy
Cinematography	Julio Macat
Edited by	Raja Gosnell
Music by	John Williams
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	November 16, 1990 (USA)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$15,000,000 US (est.)

Home Alone (PG) is a 1990 comedy film written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus. It stars Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an eight-year-old who is mistakenly left behind when his family flies to Paris, France for their Christmas holiday. While initially relishing his time alone, he is later greeted by two house burglars, whom he outwits by rigging the house with booby traps.

Most of the film was shot in the Chicago suburbs of Winnetka, Illinois and Wilmette, Illinois. Any other shots, such as those of Paris, are either stock footage or movie trickery.

Plot

After a fight with his older brother Buzz, who had eaten his pizza, Kevin McCallister is sent up to the third floor of his house for the night, and then he wishes his family would simply disappear. After a powerline failure, the rest of the family oversleeps, and are forced to rush to leave for their Christmas vacation in Paris. This results in Kevin being left home alone when a member of the family miscounts due to another kid being in the way to see what all the fuss was about. At first, he is pleased and believes his wish has come true. He begins to do things he would not have be allowed to do otherwise, such as jumping on his parents' bed, eating junk food, riding down the stairs on a sled and watching an R-rated gangster film. He also goes shopping (with some money that he steals from Buzz's room, which he ends up wrecking in the process) and unintentionally steals a toothbrush after being scared away from the drug store by Old Man Marley (Roberts Blossom), a man who is believed to have murdered his family and several neighbors with a snow shovel back in 1958.

Kevin later finds out that two burglars (known as the "Wet Bandits") named Harry Lyme (Joe Pesci) and Marv Murchens (Daniel Stern) have their eyes on the neighborhood and know his family are away. Kevin turns on the lights in the basement, to make the burglars think that the family are still in the house. They return the following night and are fooled by the life-size figures being moved about that Kevin has set up with manniquins and cut-out basketball players. When they return a second time, Kevin makes Marv think that somebody was shot inside the house by playing a scene from his gangster film really loud. Harry decides that they are better off telling the police about an alleged murder if they are later questioned about it.

Meanwhile in Paris, Kevin's mother Kate is desperately trying to catch a flight back to the United States. Eventually, she manages to swap her Rolex watch, $500, and some more jewelry for an economy seat back to Dallas and then Scranton.

Back at the house, Harry decides to check up on things, and looks through one of the downstairs windows, where Kevin is putting decorations on a Christmas tree. Kevin tries to make it appear that he is not alone by calling for his father. Harry however is not fooled and the two plan to return to rob the house that night at nine o'clock, but Kevin overhears the plan. He later decides to give the church a visit, where he runs into Old Man Marley and finds out that he is in fact a perfectly nice man, and that all his terrible rumors are false. He tells Kevin about an argument he had with his son years ago and how they have not spoken since. Kevin suggests he call him.

He runs home and sets up a series of traps around the house such as Micro Machines across the floor, a light switch in the basement tied to a heated clothes iron in a laundry chute, and a high-power blow torch to the back door. The two burglars fall for every single trap that has been set for them. Kevin escapes to his treehouse and runs to the Murphy's house. However, Marv and Harry are already there and are planning to do horrible things to him when Marley appears and knocks them out with his snow shovel. He then returns Kevin home safely. The police arrive and arrest both Harry and Marv. They also find out that the houses they had robbed always had the water running.

The following Christmas morning, a van full of polka musicians has driven Kevin's mother home. She enters the house. They hug and seconds later the rest of the family arrives home. Kevin does not tell the family about his encounter with the burglars but does impress them by telling them he went shopping, even though he, as Buzz says, "...doesn't know how to tie his shoe". In the final scene Kevin sees that Old Man Marley has been reunited with his son and granddaughter, and Buzz shouts from off screen, "Kevin! What did you do to my room?!". Kevin runs of the screen and the credits roll.

Cast

The movie made Culkin a world-renowned actor. The film also features Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as the "Wet Bandits". Catherine O'Hara, Roberts Blossom, and John Heard also co-star.

• Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister: Kevin is an eight-year-old smart-mouthed and extraordinarily clever kid living in suburban Chicago, whose parents accidentally leave him home when they travel to Paris, France.
• Joe Pesci as Harry Lyme: Harry is the smarter of the two criminals known as the "Wet Bandits", whose plan it is to loot every house in the McCallisters' wealthy suburban neighborhood before the residents come home from their Christmas vacations. He often mutters "ratcha fatcha" whenever he falls into one of Kevin's traps.
• Daniel Stern as Marv Murchens: Marv is the dopier of the group. He foolishly leaves the water running at the Murphys' house, but probably his most sensible moment was when he tried to stop Harry from robbing the McCallisters' house with Kevin inside it.
• Roberts Blossom as Old Man Marley: Marley is a local man who was thought to be the alleged "South Bend Shovel Slayer".
• Catherine O'Hara as Kate McCallister: Kate is Kevin's mother. She loses her son, and gets stuck in a blizzard at the airport in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She desperately tries to get back home to him at all costs, even if she has to "sell her soul to the devil himself".

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 Hughes, has a supporting role as a polka musician. John Williams created the musical score, which was nominated for an Oscar.

Video games

Home Alone video games were released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Genesis, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Game Gear, the Game Boy, the Sega Master System, the Amiga as well as personal computers.

• The first Home Alone game was released in 1991.
• The Home Alone NES game is a cult classic game beloved in vintage game circles for its odd gameplay, quirky glitches, and extreme 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.
• A video game titled Home Alone was released for the Playstation 2 in 2006.

Sequels

• Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
• Home Alone 3 (1997)
• Home Alone 4: Taking back the House (2002)

Home Alone 2 brings back the original cast from the first movie. The 3rd has completely different actors, and a different storyline. Home Alone 4 goes back to Kevin, but has a new cast.

Box office performance

In its opening weekend, Home Alone grossed $17 million in 1,202 theatres, averaging $14,211 per site and just 6% of the final total. Home Alone proved so popular that it stayed in theaters well past the Christmas season. It was the #1 film at the box office for 12 straight weeks, from its release weekend of November 16-18, 1990 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 finally falling out of the top 10. The film ended up making a final gross of $285,761,243, the top grossing film of its year

By the time it had run its course in theatres, Home Alone was the third highest grossing movie of all time, according to the home video box. In total, its cinema run grossed $477,561,243 worldwide.

Parodies

In a comedy scene entitled Home Alone Again with Michael Jackson on the sketch comedy television series, In Living Color, Tommy Davidson as Michael Jackson performed the blunder scenes of Marv and Harry. Jonathan Taylor Thomas performed the role of Kevin with Macaulay as his name.

In the spy-parody film Spy Hard, the role of Kevin was parodied by a kid named McCluckey (performed by Mason Gamble). His booby traps backfired on him when he was chased by goons.

External links

• Home Alone at IMDb
• Home Alone at Rotten Tomatoes