“Home Alone.” Ten interesting facts about the famous comedy

The cult comedy from 1990 has no shortage of scenes that will freeze your blood. In one of them, Kevin puts a spider on the face of a burglar (played by Daniel Stern). The actor agreed to let a real tarantula walk across his face provided that the scene would be shot in one take, wrote Time magazine. Interestingly, the scream of the terrified burglar was only added in post-production. The filmmakers didn't want to risk scaring the spider off on set.

According to James Hughes, son of screenwriter John Hughes, his father wrote the screenplay for “Home Alone” less than 10 days after he felt anxious about traveling with his family to Europe in 1989. “Two weeks later, when he returned home, he thought about it again: What if one of the children had been accidentally left behind?” – wrote James Hughes in an article for “Chicago” magazine in 2015. “Over the next nine days, he completed the first draft of the film,” we read. The son of a famous screenwriter added that his father wrote the last 44 pages of the script in just 8 hours. “Before he finished, in the margins of his diary he expressed concern that he was working too slowly,” he noted.

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It is no secret that Kieran Culkin – an actor known, among others, for the role of Roman Roy in the series “Succession” – in private, he is the brother of Macaulay Culkin, who plays the role of Kevin. However, not everyone knows that the brothers had the opportunity to appear together in a Christmas hit. The younger of the Culkin brothers played the role of Kevin's younger cousin, with whom he does not want to share a bed at the very beginning of the film.

Joe Pesci, who played the burglar Harry Lyme, was not the filmmakers' first choice. Earlier, as reported by the magazine “Mental Floss”, Robert De Niro was offered the role. After him, Jon Lovitz, known from “Saturday Night Live”, also rejected the offer.

In turn, Roberts Blossom, who plays Marley, an elderly man who saves Kevin from burglars, was initially not supposed to appear in the production because the first version of the script did not include this character. Ultimately, the scriptwriter added it as a nod to Dickens' “A Christmas Carol” after the director suggested that “the story could use more heart,” Time wrote.

Although “Home Alone” was released 13 years after Elvis Presley's death, some conspiracy theorists that the king of rock and roll were still alive claimed that he had a cameo role in the film. In exactly one scene at the airport, in which Kevin's mother (Catherine O'Hara) argues with an airport employee in Scranton. Behind the woman's back, you can then see a man in a jacket and turtleneck who somewhat resembles Presley. Journalists of the “Skeptical Inquirer” magazine determined years later that the alleged Elvis was in fact Gary Grott, who was an extra in several films by director Chris Columbus.

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The above-mentioned Catherine O'Hara recorded some of her lines into a tennis ball placed on a stand at the height of Kevin's or another child's head. All because of regulations prohibiting the participation of minors in photos after hours. 22. – We were recording a scene with one of the children, and then, even at one in the morning, we were shooting close-ups of me – said the actress in one of the interviews.

“Home Alone” took theaters by storm USA before Christmas in 1990 and remained at the top of the list of most watched films in cinemas for 12 weeks, and in the top ten until June 1991. At that time, the film grossed over $285 million and became the highest-grossing film of 1990 in the United States, as well as the highest-grossing American live-action comedy in history. In the case of the most recent achievement, “Kevin” remained at number one for 27 years.

Not only the filmmakers, but also the current owners of the house that “played” the house of Kevin's parents can complain about the lack of profits. As reported by USA Today, the impressive residence was sold just before this year's holidays for $5.25 million, i.e. the equivalent of approximately PLN 21.4 million. The property was renovated and expanded in 2018, but “the current owners have made every effort to preserve the architectural details and integrity of the house's most memorable and recognizable spaces,” the excerpt read. sales announcements.

The New York Times noted this year that the building, located in Winnetka, a Chicago suburb, “is the region's top tourist attraction.” The house was previously for sale in 2011. – Very few houses played a main role in the film, in the sense that they became an additional character – said Marissa Hopkins from the sales company at the time.

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The music for the film was composed by John Williams, one of the most famous contemporary film music composers, creator of soundtracks for such cult series as “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones”. But “Home Alone” is also an unforgettable hit. Thanks to the film, one of them, “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree”, recorded by Brenda Lee in 1958, enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in the early 1990s.

The singer, asked in an interview with Billboard magazine in 2019 when she realized she had recorded a hit, replied: – Someone called me and said: “Have you seen the movie 'Home Alone?' You should, because 'Rockin' appears there. Then it really (the song – ed.) became a hit among young people. I knew it was something special, but you never know what will turn out to be a hit, Lee said. In December 2024, Tennessee recognized “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree” as the state's official Christmas song.