Home Alone

Home Alone
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Chris Columbus
Produced by	John Hughes
Written by	John Hughes
Starring	Macaulay Culkin Joe Pesci Daniel Stern John Heard Catherine O'Hara
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Julio Macat
Editing by	Raja Gosnell
Studio	Hughes Entertainment
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	November 16, 1990 (1990-11-16)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$18 million[1]
Box office	$476,684,675[1]

Home Alone is a 1990 American Christmas family comedy film written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus. The film stars Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an eight-year-old boy who is mistakenly left behind when his family flies to Paris for their Christmas vacation. Kevin initially relishes being home alone, but soon has to contend with two would-be burglars played by Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci. The film also features Catherine O'Hara and John Heard as Kevin's parents. As of 2009, Home Alone was the highest-grossing comedy of all time.^[2] It spawned a successful franchise, with four sequels and three video games, with the main cast reprising their roles for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Plot

The night before their flight to Paris for the Christmas holiday, the McCallister family gathers at the Winnetka, Illinois home of Peter and Kate McCallister. Their eight-year-old son Kevin is tormented by his siblings and cousins. After a fight with his older brother Buzz, Kevin is sent to the third floor of the house, where he wishes his family would disappear. During the night, an electrical outage resets the alarm clocks and causes the family to oversleep. In the confusion and rush to reach their flight on time, Kevin is left behind and the family is unaware until they are already airborne. Once in Paris, both Peter and Kate desperately try to book a flight home, but find all the flights booked for the next two days. The clerks put Kate on standby for any possible seat opening. The rest of the family goes to their relative's home in Paris.

Meanwhile, Kevin wakes up to find the house empty and is overjoyed with his new freedom. The Chicago Police Department arrive to check on Kevin but are unable to locate him. Kevin's joy soon turns to fear as he deals with his next door neighbor "Old Man" Marley (who is rumored to have murdered his family many years earlier) and a pair of burglars, Harry and Marv (the "Wet Bandits"). The duo are burglarizing the neighborhood's vacant homes and have targeted the McCallisters. Kevin keeps the duo at bay by tricking them into thinking the house is still inhabited, but they eventually realize Kevin is alone.

Kate gets a flight to the U.S., but ends up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She tries to book a flight to Chicago but they are again all booked. Kate refuses to accept the situation, and she is overheard by Gus Polinski, the lead member of a traveling polka band, who offers to let her travel with them to Chicago on their way to Milwaukee, which she happily accepts.

On Christmas Eve, Kevin overhears Harry and Marv discussing plans for breaking into his house that night. Kevin goes to church and watches a choir perform. Marley sits beside Kevin and the pair talk; he learns that Marley is actually a nice person and the rumors about him are false. He tells Kevin he is watching the choir because his granddaughter is in it, and he never gets to see her because he and his son have not spoken in years after they had an argument; Kevin suggests he reconcile with his son.

Kevin returns home and rigs the house with numerous booby traps. Harry and Marv break in, springing the traps and suffering various injuries. While the duo closes in on Kevin, he calls the police and escapes the house into a neighboring vacant home. Harry and Marv manage to catch him and discuss how they will get their revenge, but Marley sneaks in and knocks them out with his snow shovel before they can hurt him. Harry and Marv are arrested and connected to multiple other burglaries because of Marv's habit of flooding the houses that he and Harry have burglarized.

On Christmas Day, Kevin is disappointed to find that his family is still gone. He then hears Kate enter the house and call for him; they reconcile and are quickly joined by the rest of the McCallisters, who waited in Paris until they could get a direct flight to Chicago. Kevin keeps silent about his encounter with Harry and Marv, although Peter finds Harry's missing gold tooth. Kevin then observes Marley reuniting with his son and his family. Marley notices Kevin and the pair acknowledge each other. Buzz suddenly calls out, "Kevin, what did you do to my room?" at which point Kevin runs off.

Cast

• Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an energetic eight-year-old boy who is the youngest son of the McCallister family. He can be obnoxious and annoying, but he is proven to be extremely clever and resourceful.
• Joe Pesci as Harry, the short leader of the Wet Bandits.
• Daniel Stern as Marv, the tall member of the Wet Bandits.
• John Heard as Peter McCallister, Kevin's father.
• Catherine O'Hara as Kate McCallister, Kevin's mother.
• Roberts Blossom as Kevin's elderly neighbor Marley.

The rest of the McCallister family is portrayed by: Devin Ratray as Buzz and Mike Maronna as Jeff, Kevin's brothers; Hillary Wolf as Megan and Angela Goethals as Linnie, Kevin's sisters; Gerry Bamman as Uncle Frank; Terrie Snell as Aunt Leslie; and Kevin's cousins are portrayed by Jedidiah Cohen as Rod, Senta Moses as Tracy, Daiana Campeanu as Sondra, Kieran Culkin as Fuller, Anna Slotky as Brooke, and Kristin Minter as Heather. The cast also includes: John Candy as Gus Polinski, "the Polka King of the Midwest"; Larry Hankin as Larry Balzak, a police sergeant who works in family crisis; and Ken Hudson Campbell as a man dressed as Santa Claus.

Production

Home Alone house in Winnetka, Illinois

Home Alone was initially a Warner Bros. production; when 20th Century Fox took over the project, the budget grew from $14 to $17 million.^[3]

Home Alone was set—and mostly shot—in the greater Chicago area. Other shots, such as those of Paris, are either stock footage or film trickery.^{[citation needed]} The Paris-Orly Airport scenes were filmed in one part of O'Hare International Airport. The scene where Kevin wades through a flooded basement when trying to outsmart the burglars was shot in the swimming pool of New Trier High School. A mock-up of the McDonnell Douglas DC10 business class was also put together in the school, on the basketball courts.^[4]

Some scenes were shot in a three-story single-family house located at 671 Lincoln Avenue^[5] in the village of Winnetka,^[6] The kitchen in the film was shot in the house, along with the main staircase, basement and most of the first floor landing. The house's dining room, and all the downstairs rooms (excluding the kitchen) were built on a sound stage.^[7] The house was built in 1921 and features five bedrooms, a fully converted attic, a detached double garage and a greenhouse.^[8] "Kevin's tree house" in the backyard was built specifically for the film and demolished after principal photography ended.^{[citation needed]}

In May 2011, the house was listed for sale at $2.4 million;^[9] it sold in March 2012 for $1.585 million.^[5] The house is promoted as a tourist attraction^[10] and cited as an example of "How to Get Your Home in the Movies."^[11]

Music

The film score of Home Alone was composed by John Williams. Christmas songs, such as "O Holy Night" and "Carol of the Bells", are featured prominently in the film, as well as the film's theme song "Somewhere in My Memory". The soundtrack was released by Sony Classical in 1990.^{[citation needed]}

Reception

Box office

In its opening weekend, Home Alone grossed $17 million in 1,202 theaters, 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 No. 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.^[12] It remained a top ten draw at the box office until the weekend of April 26 that year, which was well past Easter weekend. It made two more appearances in the top ten (the weekend of May 31 – June 2 and the weekend of June 14–16) before finally falling out of the top ten.^[13] The film ended up making a final gross of $285,761,243, the top grossing film of its year in North America.^[14] The film is listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever.^[2]

By the time it had run its course in theaters, Home Alone was the third highest-grossing film of all time, according to the home video box. In total, its cinema run grossed $477,561,243 worldwide.^[15]

According to William Goldman the film's success prompted the creation of a Hollywood verb: "to be Home Aloned, meaning to have film's box office potential affected by the impact of Home Alone. Examples of movies that were Home Aloned include Three Men and a Little Lady and Kindergarten Cop.^[16]

Critical response

Home Alone received mixed reviews from film critics. The film holds a 54% approval rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 41 reviews with an average rating of 5.2/10.^[17] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, it has a rating score of 63/100 based on 9 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[18]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a 2 ¹⁄₂ out of 4-star rating. He criticized the plot as "so implausible that it makes it hard for [him] to really care about the plight of the kid [Kevin]." However, he praised Culkin's performance and compared the elaborate booby-traps in the film to Rube Goldberg.^[19] Although Caryn James of The New York Times complained that the film's first half is "flat and unsurprising as its cute little premise suggests", she praised the second half for its slapstick humor. She also praised the conversation between Kevin and Marley, as well as the film's final scenes.^[20] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly magazine gave the film a "D" grade, criticizing the film for its "sadistic festival of adult-bashing". Gleiberman said that "[John] Hughes is pulling our strings as though he'd never learn to do anything else."^[21] Variety magazine praised the film for its cast.^[22] Jeanne Cooper of The Washington Post praised the film for its comedic approach.^[23] Hal Hinson, also of The Washington Post, praised Chris Columbus's direction and Culkin's acting.^[24]

Accolades

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Original Score, which was written by John Williams, and the other for Best Original Song for "Somewhere in My Memory", music by Williams and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse.^[25]

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs - Nominated^[26]
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
  • Harry Lime & Marv Merchants - Nominated Villains^[27]

Sequels

The film was followed by a commercially successful sequel in 1992, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which brings back the first film's cast. The film within a film, Angels with Filthy Souls, had a sequel in Home Alone 2 as Angels with Even Filthier Souls. Both Angels meta-films featured character actor Ralph Foody as stereotypical 1930s mobster "Johnny".^[28]

Home Alone 3, released in 1997, has completely different actors, and a different storyline. A fourth film followed in 2002, Home Alone 4. This film features some of the same characters who were in the first two films, but with a new cast and a storyline that does not fall into the same continuity.

On November 25, 2012, a fifth film, Home Alone: The Holiday Heist premiered during ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas programming event.^[29]

Home media

Home Alone was first released on VHS on August 22, 1991 in the United States, following its November 16, 1990 theatrical release. On October 5, 1999 or 2000, the film received its first DVD release, via 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment including the re-release of the VHS in December 2000. The "Family Fun Edition" DVD was released in 2006. For the first time, this edition contained several special features:

• Audio commentary with director Chris Columbus and star Macaulay Culkin
• 1990 Press Featurette
• The Making of Home Alone
• Mac Cam: Behind the Scenes with Macaulay Culkin
• How to Burglar Proof Your Home: The Stunts of Home Alone
• Home Alone Around the World
• Where's the Buzz Now?
• Angels with Filthy Souls
• Deleted Scenes/Alternate Takes
• Blooper Reel
• Set-Top Games: Battle Plan, Trivia Game, & Head Count

The film was also made available as part of a collection on DVD, featuring all four Home Alone films. The "Family Fun Edition" was released on Blu-ray Disc on December 2010.

Novelization

Home Alone was novelized by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1990 to coincide with the film. ISBN 0-590-55066-7

In the book the McCallisters live in Oak Park, Kevin is seven years old, Buzz's tarantula is named as Axl and the Wet Bandits are named as Harry Lyme and Marv Murchens.

See also

• List of American films of 1990
• List of films featuring home invasions, a plot device in thriller films that Home Alone lampoons^[30]

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Home Alone

• Home Alone at the Internet Movie Database
• Home Alone at the TCM Movie Database
• Home Alone at allmovie
• Home Alone at Rotten Tomatoes
• Home Alone at Metacritic
• Home Alone at The Numbers

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