"Alone at Home" is 30 years old: Things you do not know about the movie

How the idea was born, the role that established a kid, a real tarantula and the "uncle" who did it all

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It's not just another movie for the whole family christmas movie.

It is the ultimate movie in both categories, a movie legend that everyone has to contend with.

Even though her big protagonist, this little siphon Kevin McCallister, has repeatedly stated in his real life as Macaulay Calkin that he avoids seeing her when he stumbles upon her!

Three decades have passed since her release on November 16, 1990, when the film was released with the family forgetting one of her children at home, leaving for a vacation in France.

A classic movie with good morning, that is, that many choose to reverently honor every Christmas.

Of course, its success was not accidental. It is another work of the leading John Hughes, the man who took American comedy by the hand and reached it to unprecedented levels, and a harmonious collaboration with Chris Columbus, who would later become an iconic director.

"Home Alone" gave birth to both his own career and his own Calcin, who would become the child prodigy of the big screen.

And if we have seen it so many times that we seem to know it all, it's time to remember some small and big omissions for the 30th anniversary of one of the biggest and best movies of the genre.

Without "Alone with the Uncle", there would be no "Alone at Home"

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The comedic and tender "Uncle Buck" was released in 1989. Along with the always wonderful John Candy, the little Macaulay Calkin also played. It was a work by John Hughes, written and directed here, and it was during its filming that the phenomenon of American cinema came up with the idea for "Home Alone."

The boisterous uncle and incurable bachelor who crawls to watch his nieces for a while was the moment I "found" for Hughes. And since it was Hughes, he made sure to put in "Home AloneAnd a scene reminiscent of "Uncle Buck."

There, the character played by Macaulay interrogates a babysitter through a mailbox. Something similar happens in "Home Alone", when McCallister talks to the villain Marv Merchants (Daniel Stern) through the dog's door.

In fact, according to the son of the unforgettable John Hughes, James, his father wrote his screenplay "Alone at Home" in less than 10 days. The family was indeed traveling to Europe and, influenced by Uncle Buck, wrote such a story.

"Two weeks later, returning home, he reconsidered the case: What would happen if we forgot one of the children behind us?" James revealed in a 2015 article in Chicago magazine. complete the first version of Home Alone ".

He even completed the last 44 pages of the script in 8 hours, according to his son. It is not known why he did not direct it, as he usually did, but only kept the position of producer.

However, it is known that Hughes was very happy, he considered the film "his real child", as James said. It also brought him to his own territory, the Chicago, but also next to two people he had loved very much. John Candy and Macaulay Calkin.

As for John Candy, he completed all his scenes in one day. In 23 hours of continuous shooting, to be exact…

Hughes wrote the role of Kevin specifically for Macaulay

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Still, that did not stop director Chris Columbus from auditioning for at least 100 kids for the role. Of course, Hughes told him that he was fighting it unfairly, he would not find it better than Calkin, and he was obviously right.

As for the infinite Columbus, who had only two films to his credit, it was the film that would send him to the top. In the film he even collaborated with John Williams on the music, the legend of "Star Wars»Of all 52 Oscar nominations.

The two of them would work together again in the first two "Harry Potter"...

Macaulay is not the only Culkin to appear in the film

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Remember Kevin's cousin Fuller, who has a bad habit of wetting his bed? He is Macaulay's brother, Kieran! It was also for him the starting point of an impressive course in Hollywood, which ended in 2019 and 2020 with Golden Globe nominations.

The fact that Columbus auditioned him for the role even taught him a valuable lesson. Columbus, who wrote the screenplays for "Gremlins" (1984) and "Goonies" (1985), would eventually become one of Hollywood's steady choices for directing family films.

And, as he said, one of the lessons he learned from "Home Alone" is that you agreed to work with a child actor, you also agree to work with his family.

"I was very young and really very naive when I thought about family environments," Columbus told the Guardian in 2013. But as we went back, we learned more. Their stories were shocking. "I had hired a child who had a really troubled family life."

And he was right. In 1995 Macaulay's parents, who were never married, indulged in a long, extremely public and very bitter litigation for the property of their son…

"Home Alone" held the Guinness World Record for 27 full years

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In the first weekend of its release, the film filled American theaters, bringing to the box office exactly 17.081.997 dollars (from 1.202 cinemas). The film held first place for 12 weeks and remained in the top 10 until June of the following year. Bringing back $ 285.761.343.

Of course, it was the biggest commercial success of 1990, and so it got into Guinness World Record, as America 's biggest box office comedy. Where she remained until 2017, when the Chinese blockbuster "Never Say Die" overthrew her.

Such was his success that he not only set new standards of success for Hollywood, but also added a word to his informal dictionary. According to Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman, a movie could now be "Home Aloned", which meant that it suffered at the box office because of the unthinkable course of "Home Alone".

At the same time, it was a real triumph of product placement. Of course, this was something that happened in Hollywood movies in the 90s, but here we are talking about a movie with sponsors in everything.

We see (and hear) Pepsi many times, as we do for a number of other brands, from American Airlines and Playboy to Tide, Tropicana, Kraft and many more.

How many sequels are there?

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Easy, one. "Home Alone 2" of 1992, one might say, where almost everyone returns from the first film, with Columbus re-directing a screenplay by Hughes. In fact, Macaulay, who received $ 110.000 for the first, now traded hard and was rewarded with $ 4,5 million.

"Home Alone" is however a franchise, having 4 sequels, 3 video games, 2 board games, a novel, but also a whole series of children's toys.

"Home Alone 3" came out in 1997 with completely different actors and a plot, but still remained in a Hughes script. The fourth ("Home Alone 4") came out as a TV movie in 2002 and a fifth starred exclusively on ABC in 2012.

The house of the McCallisters

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At No. 671 Lincoln Avenue in Chicago suburb of Winnetka is the famous McCallister House. It is a 5 bedroom house that several parts of it we have seen in the film. The house became a tourist attraction and a great landmark. When its owners, John and Cynthia Abendshien, said they would sell it in 2012, they raised more than $ 1,5 million.

It was chosen by Columbus himself, according to the tribute made to the famous house by the "Chicago Tribune".

In fact, in 2017, Bloomberg reported that the neighborhood where the house is located had climbed to the 10 most expensive in the United States. Part of the film was shot in some rooms of the house and the rest of the shots were made in the studio.

In fact, the whole film was shot exclusively in Chicago. Even shots from Orly Airport at Paris are filmed in another section of Chicago International Airport.

De Niro turned down the role of Harry Lime

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He did not even want to listen big hollywood star for such a role, passing it on to Joe Pesci, who adored him.

But Pesci was not used to making family films either. He was playing in mafia and Columbus even revealed that during his filming he missed a lot of "French" and tried to limit his ugly vocabulary!

As he has said, in order to give a really good interpretation, Joe Pesci avoided little Macaulay on set, so that the kid would not get used to him and would be really afraid of him on set.

Macaulay even got a scar from Pesci, in the latter's attempt to give his best. "In the first Home Alone, I was hung on a coat hanger and Pesci said, 'I'll cut off all your fingers with my teeth, one at a time,'" Calkin recalled, "and in one of these rehearsals, he bit me, he took out my skin ".

In an interview in 2004 on "Rule Forty Two", he even showed the mark on his hand.

The medical investigation into the adventures of the two robbers

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In real life, Harry and Marv may not have survived what they caught in the hands of the little demon in the film. The Liquid Bandits have gone through everything since the 8-year-old and they probably would not have taken her out clean if all this were true.

This was the conclusion in 2012 by Dr. Ryan St. Clair, who diagnosed in medical terms the possible injuries he would leave to them burglars every suffering they went through.

From "overwhelming fractures" to "severe deformities" the doctor spoke, even talking about organ transplants that would be needed to survive.

Yes, the tarantula on Stern's face was real

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Remember the scene where Kevin puts it tarantula of his brother in the face of Marv? Daniel Stern agreed that the spider was real, they just completed the shot in one shot!

In order not to frighten the spider, he made the grimaces of the unspeakable fear without taking a trace from his mouth. His screams were added later. It was undoubtedly one of the most memorable scenes in the film…

The film within the film that also had its own sequel

Remember the black-and-white gangster movie he plays in "Home Alone" that looks like it came out of a 1930s James Cagney mob movie? It is not true.

"Angels With Filthy Souls" starring Kevin was a work shot exclusively for "Home Alone", recruiting Ralph Fuddy to play the stereotypical mobster of the 30s. Of course, it has references to the real 1938 film "Angels with Dirty Faces".

Although it's a parody lasting just 1 minute and 20 seconds, it's really believable. In "Home Alone 2", the sequel of "Home Alone", we also see the sequel of the fake gangster.

"Angels with Even Filthier Souls" is now called and Fuddy plays again.

Elvis is alive

No movie is really great without its own conspiracy theory. If we talk about "Home Alone", the Έλβις Πρίσλεϊ is alive (despite dying in 1977) and makes a pass from the movie.

In other words, the King lives and worked as a accomplice in the film. This has been widely believed by many people who have theories for an alternative finale to what happened to Elvis and have since quoted "Home Alone" to convince.

If you watch the scene where Kevin's mom fights with the clerk at the airport, you will see a man with a beard, a jacket and a coat. This is Elvis Presley!

It's not, if we have to say,'s Gary Grott, a accomplice who has appeared in several Columbus films…

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