Having downloaded a bunch of Xmas films to introduce my little toddler to the world of Santa Claus I thought Home Alone would be a good place to start.
First off I remember how big this film was, and its very easy to see why it was so successful back in 1990 when I was 9, Macaulay Culkin is adorable and even though you know everything he does is designed to make the granny’s wet their knickers and the children want to be him, I happily go along with this carefully crafted money making machine.
John Hughes has that knack of writing family movies which I don’t think have bettered, If I was to describe his style I would say he looks for the humour in the truth but is not afraid to offend anybody.
My favourite element of this film is the bad guys, Joe Pesci & Daniel Stern are marvelous ( not a word I use often) to think I saw this movie before Goodfellas makes the older me smile to think that Joe (”Whats so funny”) Pesci was known to me as the man who played the idiot thief in the Home alone franchise, while my toddler did not take in everything, he did laugh at the aftershave scene with Culkin and did not stop laughing at Pesci & Stern each time they fell,collapsed and generally got abused all in the name of comedy.
INTERESTING FACTS ;
Entered into The Guinness Book of World Records as the “Highest Box Office Gross – Comedy”, accumulating $533,000,000 internationally.
Joe Pesci kept forgetting that he was filming a “family” movie during his character’s on-screen outbursts, so director Chris Columbus advised him to say “fridge” instead of the “F-word”.
Daniel Stern agreed to have the tarantula put on his face for exactly one take. He had to mime screaming because the noise would have scared the spider, and the scream was dubbed in later.
John Candy filmed his part in only one day, albeit an extremely long 23-hour day. The story about having once forgotten his son at a funeral home was entirely improvised. His part is obviously inspired by the character he played in Planes, Trains & Automobiles also written by John Hughes.
The concept for this movie originated during the filming of a scene in Uncle Buck in which Macaulay Culkin plays a character who interrogates a would-be-babysitter through a letterbox.
In the scene where Harry attempts to bite off Kevin’s finger, Joe Pesci actually bit Macaulay Culkin, leaving a scar on his finger.
Old Man Marley wasn’t in the original screenplay.
Hope Davis plays the French ticket agent, you would not have cared at the time of release as she was unknown, but since then she has starred in some monster movies.
8/10
KO
Movie Dr 