An Appreciation: 'Home Alone' (1990)

"This is my house! I have to defend it!"

- Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McAllister

Hello one and all.

I'm not sure why this movie stuck, but it did. In my early youth, I was a less discerning lad of 18 years who would eat up anything advertised for the multiplexes back then; and this of course, was before the advent of YouTube. The late John Hughes was a perennial favorite writer/director of mine since Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, but after one of his best movies, She's Having a Baby from 1988 with Kevin Bacon flopped, it would seem almost expected that he would reinvent himself as a kiddie movie writer/director. In 1989, he would re-team with John Candy with his rebound hit: Uncle Buck, which would cast a relatively unknown child actor named Macaulay Culkin who had a toe-to-toe scene with the late venerable comedian. He would then be cast as an 8-year-old kid part of an extended family in his next movie, a holiday romp called Home Alone.

Released in November of 1990, it would be heavily marketed on the new Fox TV network (20th Century Fox studios of course, being the parent company and the studio that released it) and re-introduce us all to a long dormant comedy subsection: The Holiday Comedy. Directed by Chris Columbus, known for his hit teen-caper comedy, Adventures In Babysitting and for writing Gremlins and The Goonies, Columbus and Hughes would tap into a fascinating premise and that was, the inadvertent ditching of a family member by accident (especially someone under the age of 10) and the complicated dynamics of family, but from the perspective of a child. Also, adding a third; what happens when moronic adults who burglarize for a living are face-to-face with a resourceful 8-year-old boy who can do wonders with Matchbox cars, tar, blowtorches, barbecue tongs, BB guns, paint cans, glue guns, pillow feathers, tree ornaments, irons, ice and of course, a runaway pet tarantula.

The gist of the plot. Kevin McCallister's extended family are desperate to pack and get the kids suppered and ready for bed, as they have an early morning flight to Paris, France at dawn. McCallister is the very snarky, but perceptive kid who is always marginalized. A police officer (or perhaps one impersonating one; played by the always reliable Joe Pesci) is doing some reconnaissance on the house while a pizza delivery kid awaits payment for the supper. Kevin's boorish older brother (Devin Ratray) delights in tormenting his younger brother over the fact that he ate the last only-cheese pizza and blitzes him, causing pandemonium in the kitchen. Kevin's mother (Catherine O'Hara) and father (the late John Heard), of course, side with the older brother and punish him for the night. Of course, Kevin indulges in some wishful thinking in hoping his family vanishes and never returns. Of course, a blizzard knocks out the power and they miss their early wake-up airport van call. The entire house brood makes a mad dash to get ready to leave and they do make it to the airport on time and it seems like a pleasant enough flight - until Mom realizes mid-flight that she had forgotten to wake up the punished lad and have him accounted for.

The 1990 Poster.

Subplot gist. The phony cop and his partner (Daniel Stern) are neighborhood cat burglars dubbed the Wet Bandits, who stake the block for vacationing holiday families. The McCallister's being one of them, their house seems an apropos target, until they learn that Kevin was indeed left behind by accident, but are willing risk a kidnapping charge. What they of course didn't count on, was Kevin's resilience and his ability to keep the the dopey adults from keeping the house from being pilfered and ransacked. Meantime, Mom makes a desperate and frantic flight with too-many-pit-stops home where she meets (no surprise) Good Samaritan polka player John Candy who channels his Planes, Trains and Automobile character, and rescues her with a ride home with his band.

In conclusion, I still can't recollect why I enjoyed this film so much, except to say that it had so many pleasing elements that it's either hard to choose or even to care why. It just is. It has the fun ingredients of a kiddie dysfunctional family comedy as well as a "Three Stooges" slapstick comedy with all the bumps, bruises, yet strangely zero blood poundings-to-the-head, although I still wonder just how much internal bleeding and concussions these guys fictitiously avoided. Culkin, as a child star, held our attention with his sweet cockiness and charm, although its still sad that this may be his one-and-only claim to fame. Pesci and Stern were perfect second bananas and yes, the "Tarantula-to-the-nose" scene still busts my internal organs to this day. O'Hara and the late Heard prove likable parents and yes, Ratray succeeds at being the "Older Brother From Hell" who gets his just desserts in the end.

Home Alone was such a smash that with little to no shock, yielded a sequel in 1992: Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, which had the exact same elements, but had little to zero of the charm and fun of the first. It may also be noteworthy (or better yet, infamous) of a certain real estate developer who would meet our young hero at a hotel lobby and point out where the restroom is. He is now sadly running our country.

Happy Holidays.