Home alone сценарий

Where’s my suitcase?

Miss. Young lady!

Excuse me. Girls!

Hey, little fella. Hey!

Excuse me, girls. Girls!

Hey, big fella!

Help me make the beds

in the living room.

Come on down here!

Hey, son!

Big fella.

Hey, little guy! Little guy!

Pete’s brother

and his family are here.

Trish is going to Montreal.

Montreal? Oh, her family’s there.

— Then we’re off.

— When?

— Tomorrow.

— You’re not ready, are you?

Uncle Frank won’t let me

watch the movie…

…but the big kids can.

Why can’t I?

I’m on the phone.

When do you come back?

Not till then?

It’s not even rated R.

He’s just being a jerk.

Kevin, if Uncle Frank says no…

…then it must be really bad.

No, we put the dog in the kennel…

Hey, get off!

Kevin, out of the room.

Hang up the phone and make me,

why don’t you?

This kid.

Did you pick up

a voltage adaptor thing?

No, I didn’t have time.

— Then how do I shave in France?

— Grow a goatee.

Dad, nobody’ll let me do anything.

I’ve got something, pick up those

MicroMachines that are all over.

Aunt Leslie almost broke her neck.

He was playing

with the glue gun again.

We talked about that.

Did I burn down the joint?

I don’t think so.

I made ornaments out of fish hooks.

— My new fish hooks?

— I can’t make them out of old ones…

…with dry worm guts stuck on them.

— Peter.

— Come on, Kevin. Out.

Do you guys have a voltage adaptor?

Here’s a voltage adapter!

God, you’re getting heavy!

Go pack your suitcase.

Pack my suitcase?

— Where’s the shampoo?

— I don’t live here.

This many people here and no shampoo.

— Are your folks home?

— They don’t live here.

— Tracy, did you order the pizza?

— Buzz did.

Excuse me. Are your parents here?

My parents live in Paris.

— Hi!

— Hi!

— Are your parents home?

— Yeah.

— Do they live here?

— No.

Why should they?

All kids, no parents.

Probably a fancy orphanage.

I don’t know how to pack a suitcase.

I’ve never done it once.

— Tough.

— That’s what Megan said.

What did I say?

You told him «Tough.»

The dope was whining about a suitcase.

What was I supposed to say?

«Congratulations, you’re an idiot»?

— I’m not an idiot!

— Really?

You’re helpless! We have to do

everything for you.

— She’s right, Kev.

— Excuse me, puke-breath. I’m small.

I don’t know how to pack.

— I hope you didn’t just pack crap.

— Shut up, Linnie.

You know what I should pack?

Buzz told you, cheek-face.

Toilet paper and water.

What are you so worried about?

You know Mom’s gonna

pack your stuff, anyway.

You’re what the French call

les incompetents.

What?

Bombs away!

P.S. You have to sleep

on the hide-a-bed with Fuller.

If he has something to drink,

he’ll wet the bed.

This house is so full of people

it makes me sick!

When I grow up and get married,

I’m living alone!

Did you hear me?

I’m living alone!

I’m living alone!

Who’s gonna feed your spider?

He just ate a load of mice guts.

He’ll be good for a couple weeks.

Is it true French babes

don’t shave their pits?

Some don’t.

But they got nude beaches.

Not in the winter.

Don’t you know how to knock,

phlegm-wad?

Can I sleep here?

I don’t want to sleep with Fuller.

If he drinks, he’ll wet the bed.

I wouldn’t let you sleep in my room

if you were growing on my ass.

Check it out.

Old man Marley.

Who’s he?

You ever heard of the South Bend

Shovel Slayer?

That’s him.

In ’58 he murdered his whole family

and half the people on his block…

…with a snow shovel.

Been hiding out

in this neighborhood ever since.

If he’s the shovel slayer,

how come the cops don’t arrest him?

Not enough evidence to convict.

Home Alone
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Chris Columbus
Written by	John Hughes
Produced by	John Hughes
Starring	Macaulay Culkin Joe Pesci Daniel Stern John Heard Roberts Blossom Catherine O’Hara
Cinematography	Julio Macat
Edited by	Raja Gosnell
Music by	John Williams
Production company	Hughes Entertainment
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	November 10, 1990 (Chicago) November 16, 1990 (United States)
Running time	103 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$18 million[2]
Box office	$476.7 million[2]

Home Alone is a 1990 American Christmas comedy film directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes. The first film in the Home Alone franchise, the film stars Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, and Catherine O’Hara. Culkin plays Kevin McCallister, a boy who defends his suburban Chicago home from burglars after his family accidentally leaves him behind on their Christmas vacation to Paris.

Hughes conceived Home Alone while on vacation, with Warner Bros. being originally intended to finance and distribute the film. However, Warner Bros. shut down production after it exceeded its assigned budget. 20th Century Fox assumed responsibilities following secret meetings with Hughes. Columbus and Culkin were hired soon afterwards. Filming took place between February and May 1990 on location across Illinois.

Home Alone premiered in Chicago on November 10, 1990, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 16, and it received positive reviews, with praise for its cast, humor, and music. Home Alone grossed $476.7 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing live-action comedy until the release of The Hangover Part II (2011), and made Culkin a child star. Moreover, it was the second-highest-grossing film of 1990, behind Ghost.^[3] It was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Culkin, and for the Academy Award for Best Original Score for John Williams, and Best Original Song for «Somewhere in My Memory». Home Alone has since been considered one of the best Christmas films.^[4][5] A sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, was released in 1992.

Plot[edit]

The McCallister family is preparing to spend Christmas in Paris, gathering at Kate and Peter’s home in a Chicago suburb on the night before their departure. Kate and Peter’s youngest son, Kevin, is the subject of ridicule by his older siblings and cousins. Kevin inadvertently ruins the family dinner after a brief scuffle with his oldest brother Buzz, in which Kevin’s airplane ticket is accidentally thrown away, resulting in Kate sending him up to the attic. Kevin berates his mother for allowing the rest of the family to pick on him and wishes that his family would disappear. During the night, heavy winds create a power outage, disabling the alarm clocks and causing the family to oversleep. In the confusion and rush to get to the airport, Kevin is accidentally left behind.

Kevin wakes to find the house empty, and the family cars still in the garage, unaware that they had rented vans to take them to the airport. Thinking that his wish has come true, he is overjoyed with his newfound freedom. Later, Kevin becomes frightened by his next door neighbor, «Old Man» Marley, who is rumored to be a serial killer who murdered his own family. The McCallister home is soon stalked by the «Wet Bandits», Harry and Marv, a pair of burglars who have been breaking into other vacant houses in the neighborhood. Kevin tricks them into thinking that his family is still home, forcing them to postpone their plans to rob the McCallister house.

Kate realizes mid-flight that Kevin was left behind, and upon arrival in Paris, the family discovers that all flights for the next two days are booked, and that the phone lines are still down back home in Chicago. Peter and the rest of the family stay in his brother’s apartment in Paris, while Kate manages to get a flight back to Scranton, Pennsylvania. She tries to find a flight to Chicago, but all the flights are booked. Kate is overheard by Gus Polinski, the lead member of a traveling polka band, who offers to let her travel with them to Chicago in a moving van.

Meanwhile, on Christmas Eve, Harry and Marv finally realize that only Kevin is in the McCallister home, and Kevin overhears them discussing plans to break into the house that night. Kevin starts to miss his family and asks the local Santa Claus impersonator if he could bring his family back for Christmas. He goes to church and watches a choir perform, and encounters Marley, who proves the rumors about him are false. Marley points out his granddaughter in the choir, and mentions he has never met her since she is the daughter of his estranged son. Kevin suggests to Marley that he should reconcile with his son.

Kevin returns home and rigs the house with booby traps. Harry and Marv break in, spring the traps, and suffer various injuries. While Harry and Marv pursue Kevin around the house, he calls the police and lures the duo into a vacant neighboring house which they had previously broken into. Harry and Marv ambush Kevin and prepare to get their revenge, but Marley intervenes and knocks them out with his snow shovel. The police arrive and arrest Harry and Marv, having identified all the houses that they broke into due to their habit of flooding them.

On Christmas Day, Kevin is initially disappointed to find that his family is still gone, but Kate arrives home and they reconcile. The rest of the family then returns after waiting in Paris until they could obtain a direct flight to Chicago. Kevin keeps silent about his encounter with Harry and Marv, although Peter finds Harry’s knocked-out gold tooth. Kevin then watches Marley reuniting with his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter.

Cast[edit]

Production[edit]

Development[edit]

Writer and producer John Hughes conceived Home Alone while preparing to go on vacation. He said: «I was going away on vacation, and making a list of everything I didn’t want to forget. I thought, ‘Well, I’d better not forget my kids.’ Then I thought, ‘What if I left my 10-year-old son at home? What would he do?‘«^[6] Hughes wrote eight pages of notes that developed into the screenplay.^[6] Imagining that children are naturally most scared of robbers, Hughes also worked that aspect into the plot of the film.^[6]

Home Alone was initially set to be financed and distributed by Warner Bros. Hughes promised that he could make the movie for less than $10 million, considerably less than most feature film production budgets of that era. Concerned that the film might exceed that amount, Hughes met secretly with 20th Century Fox before production to see if they would fund the project if Warner proved inflexible. According to executive producer Scott Rosenfelt, a copy of the script was «clandestinely» delivered to Fox, bypassing the legal restrictions that would have otherwise prevented Fox from seeing it until the project was in turnaround.^[7] Early in production, the budget grew to $14.7 million. Warner demanded that it be cut by $1.2 million; the producers responded with a memo arguing that the budget could not be cut any further. Unconvinced, Warner shut down production the next day, but it quickly resumed when Fox took up Hughes on his offer. The final budget grew to $18 million.^[7]

Hughes had asked Patrick Read Johnson to direct, but he was committed to directing Spaced Invaders.^[8] He turned to Chris Columbus, who had left National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation before shooting started because of a personality clash with starring actor Chevy Chase, who Columbus said treated him «like dirt».^[9] Hughes gave him the scripts for both Home Alone and Reach the Rock; Columbus chose to direct Home Alone, as he found it funnier and liked the Christmas theme.^[10][11] Columbus did an uncredited rewrite of the script, which included the character Old Man Marley. He added the character to give the story a more serious layer, as well as a more emotional, happier ending.^[12]

Casting[edit]

Hughes suggested to Columbus that they cast Macaulay Culkin as Kevin, because of his experience while shooting Uncle Buck. Columbus met with 200 other actors for the part, as he felt it was his «directorial responsibility».^[11][13] John Mulaney was asked to audition for the role of Kevin after being scouted in a children’s sketch comedy group, but his parents refused the opportunity.^[14] Columbus finally met with Culkin and agreed he was the right choice.^[11]

After Robert De Niro and Jon Lovitz turned down the role of Harry, Joe Pesci accepted it.^[15] The role of Uncle Frank was written for Kelsey Grammer, but was given to Gerry Bamman when Grammer was unavailable.^[16][17]

Daniel Stern was cast as Marv, but before shooting started, he was told that the production schedule had been extended from six weeks to eight. He dropped out after as he would not be paid more for the extended schedule. Daniel Roebuck was hired to replace him, but after two days of rehearsal, Columbus felt he was lacking chemistry with Pesci and brought back Stern.^[7] Roebuck later said that, although he was upset to be fired from the production, he now believed the experience was «a little blip of unimportance».^[18] Chris Farley auditioned for the role of the Santa Claus impersonator, but he failed to impress Columbus.^[19]

John Candy was available for only one day to film his scenes, which took 23 hours to shoot. He was paid only $414, since he did the film as a favor to Hughes. In return, he was the only actor Hughes allowed to go off-script; according to Columbus, all his dialogue was improvised.^[7]

Filming[edit]

Principal photography took place from February 14, 1990, to May 8, 1990, over a course of 83 days.^[20][21] The house exterior scenes were filmed on location at a three-story single-family house located at 671 Lincoln Avenue^[22] in the North Shore village of Winnetka, Illinois, where Hughes’s previous films Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, She’s Having a Baby, and Uncle Buck had also been shot.^[23] The only interiors of the house used for filming in the film were the main staircase, basement, attic and most of the first floor landing,^[24] while all the other interiors of the house (including the aforementioned rooms) were duplicated on a sound stage to allow more room for equipment and crew. It was built in the gym and empty swimming pool of the former New Trier High School building, previously used by Hughes for Uncle Buck and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, where the production company had already set up its offices.^[7] The house later became a tourist attraction.^[25] The tree house in the back yard was built specifically for the film and dismantled after filming ended.^[15] Kevin runs away from Marley in Hubbard Woods Park in Winnetka.^[26] The church exteriors were shot at Trinity United Methodist Church in Wilmette, Illinois, while the interiors were shot at Grace Episcopal Church in Oak Park, Illinois.^[27]

For the film within a film, Angels with Filthy Souls (the title of which parodies the 1938 crime film Angels with Dirty Faces), shooting took only one day, on the final «test day» prior to the official start of principal photography. To create the illusion that the film was an authentic 1940s gangster film, the scene was filmed on black-and-white negative film, and Johnny’s office featured props from that era. Like much of the film, most of the sequence was shot with low, wide angles that, according to journalist Darryn King, «capture the action as if a child were perceiving it».^[28]

Cinematographer Julio Macat recalled that Pesci was more difficult to work with than Culkin. The older actor believed some of the dialogue was not of a quality commensurate with his acting ability. He also resented the early unit calls, since they prevented him from starting his day with nine holes of golf as he preferred to do.^[7] After he took the assistant director by the collar one day to complain about this, daily call times were moved back from 7 to 9 a.m. to accommodate his rounds.^[29] On the other end of the schedule, the crew had limited time to film the many nighttime scenes, since Culkin could not work any later than 10 p.m. due to his age.^[11]

Pesci said in a 2022 interview with People of working with Culkin, «I intentionally limited my interactions with him to preserve the dynamic» and made sure not «to come across on the screen that we were in any way friendly» in order to «maintain the integrity of the adversarial relationship.»^[30]

On the set, Pesci and Stern both had difficulty refraining from cursing, which became annoying to Pesci, since Culkin was on set as well. In fact, the only curse words that made it into the film was «shit», accidentally said by Daniel Stern when his shoe fell through the pet door, and «hell», which was said by both Pesci and Stern after their characters encounter one another after going through Kevin’s booby traps and by Johnny to the character of Snakes in Angels with Filthy Souls.^[31][13] Pesci’s use of «cartoon cursing», or menacing gibberish, garnered comparisons to Looney Tunes character Yosemite Sam.^[32]

The film’s stunts also created tension for the crew during shooting. Columbus said, «Every time the stunt guys did one of those stunts it wasn’t funny. We’d watch it, and I would just pray that the guys were alive.»^[11][33] Stunts were originally prepared with safety harnesses, but because of their visibility on camera, the film’s final stunts were performed without them.^[11] Troy Brown and Leon Delaney were stuntmen for Pesci and Stern, respectively.^[34] An injury had occurred between Pesci and Culkin during one of the rehearsals for the scene in which Harry tries to bite off Kevin’s finger. Culkin still has the scar.^[13] The tarantula that walks on Stern’s face was real.^[34]

Senta Moses, who played Tracy, recalled in 2020 that one of the most difficult scenes to shoot was the family’s run through O’Hare International Airport to catch their flight. While it does not last long, it required several days to film. «There were thousands of extras, all expertly choreographed so none of us would be in danger running at full speed through the American Airlines terminal», she told The Hollywood Reporter. «And we ran at full speed. Sometimes we’d bump into each other, like a multi-car pileup on the expressway, and just crack up laughing … There were so many setups and narrowly missed moments of disaster, but to my knowledge, no one got hurt.»^[35]

Music[edit]

Columbus initially hoped to have Bruce Broughton score the film, and early posters listed him as the composer. However, Broughton was busy with The Rescuers Down Under, and he had to cancel at the last minute.^[11] Columbus was later able to get in touch with Steven Spielberg, who helped him contact John Williams to produce the final score.^[11] Traditional 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 Records on cassette on December 4, 1990,^[36] and on CD on May 27, 2015.^[37]

Release[edit]

Theatrical[edit]

Home Alone premiered in Chicago on November 10, 1990.^[38] It was given a wide release on November 16, 1990.^[39]

Home media[edit]

Home Alone was first released by Fox Video on VHS and LaserDisc in the United States on August 22, 1991,^[40] their first video to go direct to sell-through rather than to the video rental market first.^[41] It sold 11 million copies, generating Fox revenue of $150 million^[42] making it, along with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the highest-selling video of all time at that point.^[41] Due to the sales, the film did not perform as well in the rental market.^[41]

It was later released on DVD on October 5, 1999, as a basic package.^[43] The film was released on Blu-ray on December 2, 2008, titled Family Fun Edition,^[44] and was released alongside Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in a collection pack on October 5, 2010.^[45] The film was reissued again on DVD and Blu-ray on October 6, 2015, alongside all four of its sequels in a box set titled Home Alone: 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Christmas Edition.^[46]

On September 15, 2020, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment and 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment released Home Alone on Ultra HD Blu-ray in time for its 30th anniversary in the United States.^[47]

Reception[edit]

Box office[edit]

Home Alone grossed $285.8 million in the United States and Canada and $190.9 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $476.7 million, against a production budget of $18 million.^[2] In its opening weekend, Home Alone grossed $17 million from 1,202 theaters, averaging $14,211 per site and just 6% of the final total and added screens over the next six weeks, with a peak screen count of 2,174 during its eighth weekend at the start of January 1991.^[48]

Home Alone was the number-one film at the box office for 12 consecutive weeks, from its release weekend of November 16–18, 1990 through the weekend of February 1–3, 1991.^[49][48] It was removed from the top spot when Sleeping with the Enemy opened with $13 million.^[48] It remained in the top ten until the weekend of April 26, 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.^[50] After over nine months into its run, the film had earned 16x its debut weekend and ended up making a final gross of $285,761,243, the top-grossing film of its year in North America.^[51] The film is listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever^[52] and held the record until it was overtaken by The Hangover Part II in 2011.^[53]

By the time the film had run its course in theaters, Home Alone was the third-highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, as well as in the United States and Canada behind only Star Wars ($322 million at the time) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ($399 million at the time), according to the home video box. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 67.7 million tickets in the United States.^[2] It was also the highest-grossing Christmas film until it was surpassed by Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch in 2018.^[54][55] The film made Culkin a child star.^[56]

Critical response[edit]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, «Home Alone uneven but frequently funny premise stretched unreasonably thin is buoyed by Macaulay Culkin’s cute performance and strong supporting stars.»^[57] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 63 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating «generally favorable reviews».^[58] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of «A» on an A+ to F scale.^[59]

Variety magazine praised the film for its cast.^[60] Jeanne Cooper of The Washington Post praised the film for its comedic approach.^[61] Hal Hinson, also of The Washington Post, praised Columbus’ direction and Culkin’s performance.^[62] 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 dialogue between Kevin and Marley, as well as the film’s final scenes.^[63] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a 2+1⁄2 out of a 4-star rating and 2 thumbs down. He compared the elaborate booby-traps in the film to Rube Goldberg machines, writing «they’re the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people» and 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.^[64]

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».^[65] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film three out of five and praised Culkin’s «vivid screen presence, almost incandescent with confidence». However, he criticised his acting, calling it «a bit broad and mannered».^[56] Ali Barclay of the BBC wrote «Culkin walks a fine line between annoyance and endearment throughout the film.» He also called Home Alone «a film which manages to capture some of the best qualities of Christmas».^[66]

Naomi Barnwell of Roobla said that «Home Alone has all the ingredients that make for a great kids’ film».^[67] Adrian Turner of Radio Times commented «[Home Alone is] a celebration of enterprise that captured the heart and wickedness of every child on the planet.»^[68] According to TV Guide, «[Home Alone]’s slapstick falls flat and only the pain remains.»^[69] Marielle Sabbag of Vocal wrote «Everything about [Home Alone] is beautiful and has a realistic quality.»^[70] Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times criticised the fact that «there is a reason why this film plays better as a trailer than as a full-length film.»^[71]

Home Alone gradually became a Christmas classic.^{[72][73][74][75]} It was praised for its quotable phrases,^[76] morals,^[77] traps,^[78] and main character.^[79] Hannah-Rose Yee of Stylist called the ending «very sweet» and praised the score from John Williams, calling it «fantastic».^[80] Christopher Hooton of The Independent also praised the film, calling the film-within-a-film Angels with Filthy Souls «a fond footnote in cinema history».^[81] Matt Talbot from Simcoe.com said that the Wet Bandits were «fantastic» and «never [got] old» on «repeat viewings».^[82] Michael Walsh of Nerdist noted the church scene as «One of the best, most touching scenes [in the film]».^[83]

Home Alone remains a highly popular Christmas movie in Poland, when it is played on Polsat every Christmas Eve. In 2010, Polsat did not play Home Alone, which caused over 90,000 people to protest on Facebook.^[84] In 2016, over 4.44 million Poles tuned in to Polsat to watch Home Alone. Since the 2010s, its TV trailers even include a tagline that acknowledges this popularity: «Christmas without him? It’s absolutely impossible!».^[85]

Julio Macat, the films cinematographer, considers Home Alone his favorite film out of all the projects he has shot. It was the favorite film of former U.S. President Gerald Ford.^[86]

Accolades[edit]

At the 12th Youth in Film Awards, Macaulay Culkin won Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture.^[87] 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, but lost to Dances with Wolves and Dick Tracy respectively.^[88]

Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result
Academy Awards[89]	Best Original Score	John Williams	Nominated
Best Original Song	«Somewhere in My Memory» Music by John Williams; Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse	Nominated
American Comedy Awards[90]	Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture (Leading Role)	Macaulay Culkin	Won
Artios Awards[91]	Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film Casting – Comedy	Jane Jenkins and Jane Hirshenson	Won
BMI Film & TV Awards	Film Music Award	John Williams	Won
British Comedy Awards[92]	Best Comedy Film	Won
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards[93]	Most Promising Actor	Macaulay Culkin	Won
Golden Globe Awards[94]	Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	Nominated
Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	Macaulay Culkin	Nominated
Golden Screen Awards	Won
Grammy Awards[95]	Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television	«Somewhere in My Memory» Music by John Williams; Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse	Nominated
Kids’ Choice Awards	Favorite Movie	Won
Online Film & Television Association Awards[96]	Hall of Fame – Motion Picture	Won
Young Artist Awards[97]	Most Entertaining Family Youth Motion Picture – Comedy/Action	Won
Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture	Macaulay Culkin	Won
Best Young Actress Supporting Role in a Motion Picture	Angela Goethals	Nominated

Accusations of plagiarism[edit]

The 1989 French horror thriller film 3615 code Père Noël, which is about a young boy who is home alone with his elderly grandfather and has to fend off a home invader dressed up as Santa Claus, has been noted for its plot similarities to Home Alone.^[98] 3615 code Père Noël director René Manzor threatened the producers of Home Alone with legal action on the grounds of plagiarism, alleging that Home Alone was a remake of his film.^[99][100] 3615 code Père Noël was not released in the United States during its original theatrical run in January 1990 and did not become widely available there until 2018.^[101][102]

Homages[edit]

The music video for Snoop Dogg’s 1994 song «Gin and Juice» opens with a gag where, after a teenaged Snoop’s parents have left him to watch the house in their absence, he places his hands to his face and yells in the manner of Kevin McCallister in the first film, while a title comes on screen reading «Home Boy Alone».^[103]

In December 2015, Culkin reprised his role as an adult Kevin McCallister in the inaugural episode of the Jack Dishel web series, «DRYVRS», where a visibly disturbed Kevin recounts his experience of being left home alone by his family.^[104] In response to Culkin’s video, Daniel Stern appeared in a short video reprising his role as Marv, released in conjunction with Stern’s Reddit AMA, where he pleads for Harry to return to help protect him against Kevin’s traps.^[105]

The 2016 Christmas-set horror film Better Watch Out includes a scene where a character who is obsessed with the Home Alone films demonstrates how, in real life, it would be deadly for someone to be hit in the face with a paint can swung from a distance.^[106]

On December 15, 2018, Culkin made a guest appearance as himself in an episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd to review multiple video game adaptations of the first two Home Alone films, as well as a gameplay session of The Pagemaster with James Rolfe and Mike Matei in the days following that episode’s release.^[107]

On December 19, 2018, Culkin again reprised his role as Kevin McCallister in a 60-second advertisement for Google Assistant, titled Home Alone Again. The commercial contains shot for shot remakes of scenes from the film. Google Assistant helps Kevin set up the house to look active by remotely turning on lights, devices, and setting up cutouts of people, to have the thieves parked in a van outside (presumably Harry and Marv) steer clear of the house.^[108] Additionally, Pesci also reprised his role as Harry, only for his voice making a small cameo. Pesci later appeared in another ad where he watches the short with his friends and jokes about his brief cameo.^[109]

The 2022 action comedy film Violent Night references Home Alone several times, and character Trudy Lightston attempts to emulate Kevin McCallister’s fighting tactics against the burglars who take her family hostage.

Use in Poland[edit]

Films such as Home Alone and Die Hard are very popular at Christmas time in Poland, because they were some of the first Western movies to be released in Poland since the end of communist rule.^{[110][111][112]} However, the Polish premiere of «Home Alone» took place not during the Christmas season, but on May 22, 1992.^[113] Three years later, on Christmas Day (December 25), 1995, at 20:10 CET on TVP1, the Polish television premiere of the film took place. Then three times on December 26, 1997, and December 24 and 25, 1999, the film was broadcast on television TVN.^[114]
In 29 December 2000, 8.9 million Poles were watching Home Alone on Christmas Eve;^[115] At that time, the broadcasting of the film was taken over by the only nationwide TV station, Polsat (TVN was broadcasting terrestrial broadcasts only in larger cities at that time), which continues it every year (with the exception of 2002, when the third part of the film was broadcast on January 1, 2003) to the present. It is Polsat that is mainly responsible for the popularity of the film «Home Alone» in Poland. On Polsat from 2000 to 2001 and from 2003 to 2013, the film «Home Alone» was broadcast alternatively both during the Christmas season (for the first time on December 24, 2003) and in the period preceding it (then the sequel of the film, i.e. «Home Alone 2: Lost in New York» or both films appeared on Polsat in the pre-Christmas or post-Christmas period, but not later than before New Year’s Eve.
In 2010, Telewizja Polsat did not include the film in the Christmas schedule, which was met with a protest of over 90,000 people on Facebook. Under the pressure of public opinion, Polsat changed its mind, however, broadcasting the film on Christmas Day (December 25) at 20:00 CET and additionally on Boxing Day (December 26) at 12:45 CET. ^[116]
Starting from 2014 (except for 2015, when the film was broadcast only on Christmas Day, i.e. December 25 at 16:40 CET, the comedy «Home Alone» is shown on Polsat every Christmas Eve (December 24) around 20:00 CET.

In 2017, about four million people (11.6% of Poland’s population) were watching it on Christmas Eve and in 2018 again in Christmas Eve the film recorded the highest viewership with 4.51 million viewers. ^[117]

Other media[edit]

Novelization[edit]

Home Alone (ISBN 0-590-55066-7) was novelized by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1990 to coincide with the film.^[118] On October 6, 2015, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie, an illustrated book (ISBN 1-594-74858-6) by Kim Smith and Quirk Books was released.^[119][120]

Sequels and franchise[edit]

The film was followed by a commercially successful sequel in 1992, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which brought back most of the first film’s cast. Culkin was paid $4.5 million to appear in the sequel, compared to $110,000 for the original.^[121] The film within a film, Angels with Filthy Souls, had a sequel in Home Alone 2, Angels with Even Filthier Souls. Both Angels meta-films featured character actor Ralph Foody as stereotypical 1930s mobster Johnny.^[122] A third film, Home Alone 3, was released in 1997; it has entirely different actors and characters as well as a different storyline, with Hughes writing the screenplay.^[123]

A fourth made-for-TV film followed in 2002: Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House. The movie features some of the same characters who were in the first two films, but with a new cast and a storyline.^[124] The fifth film, The Holiday Heist, premiered during ABC Family’s Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas programming event on November 25, 2012.^[125] Similarly to the third film, it does not focus on the McCallister family.^[126] Chris Columbus later revealed that there had been discussions on a sequel starring Kevin’s son: «This was talked about maybe 10 years ago – I don’t know, we were just having fun with it – and we said, ‘What if Kevin is an adult and he has a kid?’ But it was still Pesci and Stern – Pesci and Stern are still obsessed with this kid. They’re going to get this kid.»^[127]

A sixth film was released digitally on Disney+ on November 12, 2021, titled Home Sweet Home Alone.^[128] Devin Ratray, who played Buzz McCallister in the first two films, reprised his role in the film.^[128]

See also[edit]

• List of films featuring home invasions, a plot device in thriller films that Home Alone lampoons^[129]
• List of films featuring fictional films
• List of Christmas films
• Home Alone (video game)

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Home Alone at IMDb
• Home Alone at the TCM Movie Database

Home Alone
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Chris Columbus
Written by	John Hughes
Produced by	John Hughes
Starring	Macaulay Culkin Joe Pesci Daniel Stern John Heard Roberts Blossom Catherine O’Hara
Cinematography	Julio Macat
Edited by	Raja Gosnell
Music by	John Williams
Production company	Hughes Entertainment
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	November 10, 1990 (Chicago) November 16, 1990 (United States)
Running time	103 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$18 million[2]
Box office	$476.7 million[2]

Home Alone is a 1990 American Christmas comedy film directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes. The first film in the Home Alone franchise, the film stars Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, and Catherine O’Hara. Culkin plays Kevin McCallister, a boy who defends his suburban Chicago home from burglars after his family accidentally leaves him behind on their Christmas vacation to Paris.

Hughes conceived Home Alone while on vacation, with Warner Bros. being originally intended to finance and distribute the film. However, Warner Bros. shut down production after it exceeded its assigned budget. 20th Century Fox assumed responsibilities following secret meetings with Hughes. Columbus and Culkin were hired soon afterwards. Filming took place between February and May 1990 on location across Illinois.

Home Alone premiered in Chicago on November 10, 1990, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 16, and it received positive reviews, with praise for its cast, humor, and music. Home Alone grossed $476.7 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing live-action comedy until the release of The Hangover Part II (2011), and made Culkin a child star. Moreover, it was the second-highest-grossing film of 1990, behind Ghost.^[3] It was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Culkin, and for the Academy Award for Best Original Score for John Williams, and Best Original Song for «Somewhere in My Memory». Home Alone has since been considered one of the best Christmas films.^[4][5] A sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, was released in 1992.

Plot[edit]

The McCallister family is preparing to spend Christmas in Paris, gathering at Kate and Peter’s home in a Chicago suburb on the night before their departure. Kate and Peter’s youngest son, Kevin, is the subject of ridicule by his older siblings and cousins. Kevin inadvertently ruins the family dinner after a brief scuffle with his oldest brother Buzz, in which Kevin’s airplane ticket is accidentally thrown away, resulting in Kate sending him up to the attic. Kevin berates his mother for allowing the rest of the family to pick on him and wishes that his family would disappear. During the night, heavy winds create a power outage, disabling the alarm clocks and causing the family to oversleep. In the confusion and rush to get to the airport, Kevin is accidentally left behind.

Kevin wakes to find the house empty, and the family cars still in the garage, unaware that they had rented vans to take them to the airport. Thinking that his wish has come true, he is overjoyed with his newfound freedom. Later, Kevin becomes frightened by his next door neighbor, «Old Man» Marley, who is rumored to be a serial killer who murdered his own family. The McCallister home is soon stalked by the «Wet Bandits», Harry and Marv, a pair of burglars who have been breaking into other vacant houses in the neighborhood. Kevin tricks them into thinking that his family is still home, forcing them to postpone their plans to rob the McCallister house.

Kate realizes mid-flight that Kevin was left behind, and upon arrival in Paris, the family discovers that all flights for the next two days are booked, and that the phone lines are still down back home in Chicago. Peter and the rest of the family stay in his brother’s apartment in Paris, while Kate manages to get a flight back to Scranton, Pennsylvania. She tries to find a flight to Chicago, but all the flights are booked. Kate is overheard by Gus Polinski, the lead member of a traveling polka band, who offers to let her travel with them to Chicago in a moving van.

Meanwhile, on Christmas Eve, Harry and Marv finally realize that only Kevin is in the McCallister home, and Kevin overhears them discussing plans to break into the house that night. Kevin starts to miss his family and asks the local Santa Claus impersonator if he could bring his family back for Christmas. He goes to church and watches a choir perform, and encounters Marley, who proves the rumors about him are false. Marley points out his granddaughter in the choir, and mentions he has never met her since she is the daughter of his estranged son. Kevin suggests to Marley that he should reconcile with his son.

Kevin returns home and rigs the house with booby traps. Harry and Marv break in, spring the traps, and suffer various injuries. While Harry and Marv pursue Kevin around the house, he calls the police and lures the duo into a vacant neighboring house which they had previously broken into. Harry and Marv ambush Kevin and prepare to get their revenge, but Marley intervenes and knocks them out with his snow shovel. The police arrive and arrest Harry and Marv, having identified all the houses that they broke into due to their habit of flooding them.

On Christmas Day, Kevin is initially disappointed to find that his family is still gone, but Kate arrives home and they reconcile. The rest of the family then returns after waiting in Paris until they could obtain a direct flight to Chicago. Kevin keeps silent about his encounter with Harry and Marv, although Peter finds Harry’s knocked-out gold tooth. Kevin then watches Marley reuniting with his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter.

Cast[edit]

Production[edit]

Development[edit]

Writer and producer John Hughes conceived Home Alone while preparing to go on vacation. He said: «I was going away on vacation, and making a list of everything I didn’t want to forget. I thought, ‘Well, I’d better not forget my kids.’ Then I thought, ‘What if I left my 10-year-old son at home? What would he do?‘«^[6] Hughes wrote eight pages of notes that developed into the screenplay.^[6] Imagining that children are naturally most scared of robbers, Hughes also worked that aspect into the plot of the film.^[6]

Home Alone was initially set to be financed and distributed by Warner Bros. Hughes promised that he could make the movie for less than $10 million, considerably less than most feature film production budgets of that era. Concerned that the film might exceed that amount, Hughes met secretly with 20th Century Fox before production to see if they would fund the project if Warner proved inflexible. According to executive producer Scott Rosenfelt, a copy of the script was «clandestinely» delivered to Fox, bypassing the legal restrictions that would have otherwise prevented Fox from seeing it until the project was in turnaround.^[7] Early in production, the budget grew to $14.7 million. Warner demanded that it be cut by $1.2 million; the producers responded with a memo arguing that the budget could not be cut any further. Unconvinced, Warner shut down production the next day, but it quickly resumed when Fox took up Hughes on his offer. The final budget grew to $18 million.^[7]

Hughes had asked Patrick Read Johnson to direct, but he was committed to directing Spaced Invaders.^[8] He turned to Chris Columbus, who had left National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation before shooting started because of a personality clash with starring actor Chevy Chase, who Columbus said treated him «like dirt».^[9] Hughes gave him the scripts for both Home Alone and Reach the Rock; Columbus chose to direct Home Alone, as he found it funnier and liked the Christmas theme.^[10][11] Columbus did an uncredited rewrite of the script, which included the character Old Man Marley. He added the character to give the story a more serious layer, as well as a more emotional, happier ending.^[12]

Casting[edit]

Hughes suggested to Columbus that they cast Macaulay Culkin as Kevin, because of his experience while shooting Uncle Buck. Columbus met with 200 other actors for the part, as he felt it was his «directorial responsibility».^[11][13] John Mulaney was asked to audition for the role of Kevin after being scouted in a children’s sketch comedy group, but his parents refused the opportunity.^[14] Columbus finally met with Culkin and agreed he was the right choice.^[11]

After Robert De Niro and Jon Lovitz turned down the role of Harry, Joe Pesci accepted it.^[15] The role of Uncle Frank was written for Kelsey Grammer, but was given to Gerry Bamman when Grammer was unavailable.^[16][17]

Daniel Stern was cast as Marv, but before shooting started, he was told that the production schedule had been extended from six weeks to eight. He dropped out after as he would not be paid more for the extended schedule. Daniel Roebuck was hired to replace him, but after two days of rehearsal, Columbus felt he was lacking chemistry with Pesci and brought back Stern.^[7] Roebuck later said that, although he was upset to be fired from the production, he now believed the experience was «a little blip of unimportance».^[18] Chris Farley auditioned for the role of the Santa Claus impersonator, but he failed to impress Columbus.^[19]

John Candy was available for only one day to film his scenes, which took 23 hours to shoot. He was paid only $414, since he did the film as a favor to Hughes. In return, he was the only actor Hughes allowed to go off-script; according to Columbus, all his dialogue was improvised.^[7]

Filming[edit]

Principal photography took place from February 14, 1990, to May 8, 1990, over a course of 83 days.^[20][21] The house exterior scenes were filmed on location at a three-story single-family house located at 671 Lincoln Avenue^[22] in the North Shore village of Winnetka, Illinois, where Hughes’s previous films Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, She’s Having a Baby, and Uncle Buck had also been shot.^[23] The only interiors of the house used for filming in the film were the main staircase, basement, attic and most of the first floor landing,^[24] while all the other interiors of the house (including the aforementioned rooms) were duplicated on a sound stage to allow more room for equipment and crew. It was built in the gym and empty swimming pool of the former New Trier High School building, previously used by Hughes for Uncle Buck and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, where the production company had already set up its offices.^[7] The house later became a tourist attraction.^[25] The tree house in the back yard was built specifically for the film and dismantled after filming ended.^[15] Kevin runs away from Marley in Hubbard Woods Park in Winnetka.^[26] The church exteriors were shot at Trinity United Methodist Church in Wilmette, Illinois, while the interiors were shot at Grace Episcopal Church in Oak Park, Illinois.^[27]

For the film within a film, Angels with Filthy Souls (the title of which parodies the 1938 crime film Angels with Dirty Faces), shooting took only one day, on the final «test day» prior to the official start of principal photography. To create the illusion that the film was an authentic 1940s gangster film, the scene was filmed on black-and-white negative film, and Johnny’s office featured props from that era. Like much of the film, most of the sequence was shot with low, wide angles that, according to journalist Darryn King, «capture the action as if a child were perceiving it».^[28]

Cinematographer Julio Macat recalled that Pesci was more difficult to work with than Culkin. The older actor believed some of the dialogue was not of a quality commensurate with his acting ability. He also resented the early unit calls, since they prevented him from starting his day with nine holes of golf as he preferred to do.^[7] After he took the assistant director by the collar one day to complain about this, daily call times were moved back from 7 to 9 a.m. to accommodate his rounds.^[29] On the other end of the schedule, the crew had limited time to film the many nighttime scenes, since Culkin could not work any later than 10 p.m. due to his age.^[11]

Pesci said in a 2022 interview with People of working with Culkin, «I intentionally limited my interactions with him to preserve the dynamic» and made sure not «to come across on the screen that we were in any way friendly» in order to «maintain the integrity of the adversarial relationship.»^[30]

On the set, Pesci and Stern both had difficulty refraining from cursing, which became annoying to Pesci, since Culkin was on set as well. In fact, the only curse words that made it into the film was «shit», accidentally said by Daniel Stern when his shoe fell through the pet door, and «hell», which was said by both Pesci and Stern after their characters encounter one another after going through Kevin’s booby traps and by Johnny to the character of Snakes in Angels with Filthy Souls.^[31][13] Pesci’s use of «cartoon cursing», or menacing gibberish, garnered comparisons to Looney Tunes character Yosemite Sam.^[32]

The film’s stunts also created tension for the crew during shooting. Columbus said, «Every time the stunt guys did one of those stunts it wasn’t funny. We’d watch it, and I would just pray that the guys were alive.»^[11][33] Stunts were originally prepared with safety harnesses, but because of their visibility on camera, the film’s final stunts were performed without them.^[11] Troy Brown and Leon Delaney were stuntmen for Pesci and Stern, respectively.^[34] An injury had occurred between Pesci and Culkin during one of the rehearsals for the scene in which Harry tries to bite off Kevin’s finger. Culkin still has the scar.^[13] The tarantula that walks on Stern’s face was real.^[34]

Senta Moses, who played Tracy, recalled in 2020 that one of the most difficult scenes to shoot was the family’s run through O’Hare International Airport to catch their flight. While it does not last long, it required several days to film. «There were thousands of extras, all expertly choreographed so none of us would be in danger running at full speed through the American Airlines terminal», she told The Hollywood Reporter. «And we ran at full speed. Sometimes we’d bump into each other, like a multi-car pileup on the expressway, and just crack up laughing … There were so many setups and narrowly missed moments of disaster, but to my knowledge, no one got hurt.»^[35]

Music[edit]

Columbus initially hoped to have Bruce Broughton score the film, and early posters listed him as the composer. However, Broughton was busy with The Rescuers Down Under, and he had to cancel at the last minute.^[11] Columbus was later able to get in touch with Steven Spielberg, who helped him contact John Williams to produce the final score.^[11] Traditional 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 Records on cassette on December 4, 1990,^[36] and on CD on May 27, 2015.^[37]

Release[edit]

Theatrical[edit]

Home Alone premiered in Chicago on November 10, 1990.^[38] It was given a wide release on November 16, 1990.^[39]

Home media[edit]

Home Alone was first released by Fox Video on VHS and LaserDisc in the United States on August 22, 1991,^[40] their first video to go direct to sell-through rather than to the video rental market first.^[41] It sold 11 million copies, generating Fox revenue of $150 million^[42] making it, along with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the highest-selling video of all time at that point.^[41] Due to the sales, the film did not perform as well in the rental market.^[41]

It was later released on DVD on October 5, 1999, as a basic package.^[43] The film was released on Blu-ray on December 2, 2008, titled Family Fun Edition,^[44] and was released alongside Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in a collection pack on October 5, 2010.^[45] The film was reissued again on DVD and Blu-ray on October 6, 2015, alongside all four of its sequels in a box set titled Home Alone: 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Christmas Edition.^[46]

On September 15, 2020, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment and 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment released Home Alone on Ultra HD Blu-ray in time for its 30th anniversary in the United States.^[47]

Reception[edit]

Box office[edit]

Home Alone grossed $285.8 million in the United States and Canada and $190.9 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $476.7 million, against a production budget of $18 million.^[2] In its opening weekend, Home Alone grossed $17 million from 1,202 theaters, averaging $14,211 per site and just 6% of the final total and added screens over the next six weeks, with a peak screen count of 2,174 during its eighth weekend at the start of January 1991.^[48]

Home Alone was the number-one film at the box office for 12 consecutive weeks, from its release weekend of November 16–18, 1990 through the weekend of February 1–3, 1991.^[49][48] It was removed from the top spot when Sleeping with the Enemy opened with $13 million.^[48] It remained in the top ten until the weekend of April 26, 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.^[50] After over nine months into its run, the film had earned 16x its debut weekend and ended up making a final gross of $285,761,243, the top-grossing film of its year in North America.^[51] The film is listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever^[52] and held the record until it was overtaken by The Hangover Part II in 2011.^[53]

By the time the film had run its course in theaters, Home Alone was the third-highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, as well as in the United States and Canada behind only Star Wars ($322 million at the time) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ($399 million at the time), according to the home video box. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 67.7 million tickets in the United States.^[2] It was also the highest-grossing Christmas film until it was surpassed by Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch in 2018.^[54][55] The film made Culkin a child star.^[56]

Critical response[edit]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, «Home Alone uneven but frequently funny premise stretched unreasonably thin is buoyed by Macaulay Culkin’s cute performance and strong supporting stars.»^[57] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 63 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating «generally favorable reviews».^[58] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of «A» on an A+ to F scale.^[59]

Variety magazine praised the film for its cast.^[60] Jeanne Cooper of The Washington Post praised the film for its comedic approach.^[61] Hal Hinson, also of The Washington Post, praised Columbus’ direction and Culkin’s performance.^[62] 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 dialogue between Kevin and Marley, as well as the film’s final scenes.^[63] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a 2+1⁄2 out of a 4-star rating and 2 thumbs down. He compared the elaborate booby-traps in the film to Rube Goldberg machines, writing «they’re the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people» and 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.^[64]

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».^[65] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film three out of five and praised Culkin’s «vivid screen presence, almost incandescent with confidence». However, he criticised his acting, calling it «a bit broad and mannered».^[56] Ali Barclay of the BBC wrote «Culkin walks a fine line between annoyance and endearment throughout the film.» He also called Home Alone «a film which manages to capture some of the best qualities of Christmas».^[66]

Naomi Barnwell of Roobla said that «Home Alone has all the ingredients that make for a great kids’ film».^[67] Adrian Turner of Radio Times commented «[Home Alone is] a celebration of enterprise that captured the heart and wickedness of every child on the planet.»^[68] According to TV Guide, «[Home Alone]’s slapstick falls flat and only the pain remains.»^[69] Marielle Sabbag of Vocal wrote «Everything about [Home Alone] is beautiful and has a realistic quality.»^[70] Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times criticised the fact that «there is a reason why this film plays better as a trailer than as a full-length film.»^[71]

Home Alone gradually became a Christmas classic.^{[72][73][74][75]} It was praised for its quotable phrases,^[76] morals,^[77] traps,^[78] and main character.^[79] Hannah-Rose Yee of Stylist called the ending «very sweet» and praised the score from John Williams, calling it «fantastic».^[80] Christopher Hooton of The Independent also praised the film, calling the film-within-a-film Angels with Filthy Souls «a fond footnote in cinema history».^[81] Matt Talbot from Simcoe.com said that the Wet Bandits were «fantastic» and «never [got] old» on «repeat viewings».^[82] Michael Walsh of Nerdist noted the church scene as «One of the best, most touching scenes [in the film]».^[83]

Home Alone remains a highly popular Christmas movie in Poland, when it is played on Polsat every Christmas Eve. In 2010, Polsat did not play Home Alone, which caused over 90,000 people to protest on Facebook.^[84] In 2016, over 4.44 million Poles tuned in to Polsat to watch Home Alone. Since the 2010s, its TV trailers even include a tagline that acknowledges this popularity: «Christmas without him? It’s absolutely impossible!».^[85]

Julio Macat, the films cinematographer, considers Home Alone his favorite film out of all the projects he has shot. It was the favorite film of former U.S. President Gerald Ford.^[86]

Accolades[edit]

At the 12th Youth in Film Awards, Macaulay Culkin won Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture.^[87] 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, but lost to Dances with Wolves and Dick Tracy respectively.^[88]

Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result
Academy Awards[89]	Best Original Score	John Williams	Nominated
Best Original Song	«Somewhere in My Memory» Music by John Williams; Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse	Nominated
American Comedy Awards[90]	Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture (Leading Role)	Macaulay Culkin	Won
Artios Awards[91]	Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film Casting – Comedy	Jane Jenkins and Jane Hirshenson	Won
BMI Film & TV Awards	Film Music Award	John Williams	Won
British Comedy Awards[92]	Best Comedy Film	Won
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards[93]	Most Promising Actor	Macaulay Culkin	Won
Golden Globe Awards[94]	Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	Nominated
Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	Macaulay Culkin	Nominated
Golden Screen Awards	Won
Grammy Awards[95]	Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television	«Somewhere in My Memory» Music by John Williams; Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse	Nominated
Kids’ Choice Awards	Favorite Movie	Won
Online Film & Television Association Awards[96]	Hall of Fame – Motion Picture	Won
Young Artist Awards[97]	Most Entertaining Family Youth Motion Picture – Comedy/Action	Won
Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture	Macaulay Culkin	Won
Best Young Actress Supporting Role in a Motion Picture	Angela Goethals	Nominated

Accusations of plagiarism[edit]

The 1989 French horror thriller film 3615 code Père Noël, which is about a young boy who is home alone with his elderly grandfather and has to fend off a home invader dressed up as Santa Claus, has been noted for its plot similarities to Home Alone.^[98] 3615 code Père Noël director René Manzor threatened the producers of Home Alone with legal action on the grounds of plagiarism, alleging that Home Alone was a remake of his film.^[99][100] 3615 code Père Noël was not released in the United States during its original theatrical run in January 1990 and did not become widely available there until 2018.^[101][102]

Homages[edit]

The music video for Snoop Dogg’s 1994 song «Gin and Juice» opens with a gag where, after a teenaged Snoop’s parents have left him to watch the house in their absence, he places his hands to his face and yells in the manner of Kevin McCallister in the first film, while a title comes on screen reading «Home Boy Alone».^[103]

In December 2015, Culkin reprised his role as an adult Kevin McCallister in the inaugural episode of the Jack Dishel web series, «DRYVRS», where a visibly disturbed Kevin recounts his experience of being left home alone by his family.^[104] In response to Culkin’s video, Daniel Stern appeared in a short video reprising his role as Marv, released in conjunction with Stern’s Reddit AMA, where he pleads for Harry to return to help protect him against Kevin’s traps.^[105]

The 2016 Christmas-set horror film Better Watch Out includes a scene where a character who is obsessed with the Home Alone films demonstrates how, in real life, it would be deadly for someone to be hit in the face with a paint can swung from a distance.^[106]

On December 15, 2018, Culkin made a guest appearance as himself in an episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd to review multiple video game adaptations of the first two Home Alone films, as well as a gameplay session of The Pagemaster with James Rolfe and Mike Matei in the days following that episode’s release.^[107]

On December 19, 2018, Culkin again reprised his role as Kevin McCallister in a 60-second advertisement for Google Assistant, titled Home Alone Again. The commercial contains shot for shot remakes of scenes from the film. Google Assistant helps Kevin set up the house to look active by remotely turning on lights, devices, and setting up cutouts of people, to have the thieves parked in a van outside (presumably Harry and Marv) steer clear of the house.^[108] Additionally, Pesci also reprised his role as Harry, only for his voice making a small cameo. Pesci later appeared in another ad where he watches the short with his friends and jokes about his brief cameo.^[109]

The 2022 action comedy film Violent Night references Home Alone several times, and character Trudy Lightston attempts to emulate Kevin McCallister’s fighting tactics against the burglars who take her family hostage.

Use in Poland[edit]

Films such as Home Alone and Die Hard are very popular at Christmas time in Poland, because they were some of the first Western movies to be released in Poland since the end of communist rule.^{[110][111][112]} However, the Polish premiere of «Home Alone» took place not during the Christmas season, but on May 22, 1992.^[113] Three years later, on Christmas Day (December 25), 1995, at 20:10 CET on TVP1, the Polish television premiere of the film took place. Then three times on December 26, 1997, and December 24 and 25, 1999, the film was broadcast on television TVN.^[114]
In 29 December 2000, 8.9 million Poles were watching Home Alone on Christmas Eve;^[115] At that time, the broadcasting of the film was taken over by the only nationwide TV station, Polsat (TVN was broadcasting terrestrial broadcasts only in larger cities at that time), which continues it every year (with the exception of 2002, when the third part of the film was broadcast on January 1, 2003) to the present. It is Polsat that is mainly responsible for the popularity of the film «Home Alone» in Poland. On Polsat from 2000 to 2001 and from 2003 to 2013, the film «Home Alone» was broadcast alternatively both during the Christmas season (for the first time on December 24, 2003) and in the period preceding it (then the sequel of the film, i.e. «Home Alone 2: Lost in New York» or both films appeared on Polsat in the pre-Christmas or post-Christmas period, but not later than before New Year’s Eve.
In 2010, Telewizja Polsat did not include the film in the Christmas schedule, which was met with a protest of over 90,000 people on Facebook. Under the pressure of public opinion, Polsat changed its mind, however, broadcasting the film on Christmas Day (December 25) at 20:00 CET and additionally on Boxing Day (December 26) at 12:45 CET. ^[116]
Starting from 2014 (except for 2015, when the film was broadcast only on Christmas Day, i.e. December 25 at 16:40 CET, the comedy «Home Alone» is shown on Polsat every Christmas Eve (December 24) around 20:00 CET.

In 2017, about four million people (11.6% of Poland’s population) were watching it on Christmas Eve and in 2018 again in Christmas Eve the film recorded the highest viewership with 4.51 million viewers. ^[117]

Other media[edit]

Novelization[edit]

Home Alone (ISBN 0-590-55066-7) was novelized by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1990 to coincide with the film.^[118] On October 6, 2015, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie, an illustrated book (ISBN 1-594-74858-6) by Kim Smith and Quirk Books was released.^[119][120]

Sequels and franchise[edit]

The film was followed by a commercially successful sequel in 1992, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which brought back most of the first film’s cast. Culkin was paid $4.5 million to appear in the sequel, compared to $110,000 for the original.^[121] The film within a film, Angels with Filthy Souls, had a sequel in Home Alone 2, Angels with Even Filthier Souls. Both Angels meta-films featured character actor Ralph Foody as stereotypical 1930s mobster Johnny.^[122] A third film, Home Alone 3, was released in 1997; it has entirely different actors and characters as well as a different storyline, with Hughes writing the screenplay.^[123]

A fourth made-for-TV film followed in 2002: Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House. The movie features some of the same characters who were in the first two films, but with a new cast and a storyline.^[124] The fifth film, The Holiday Heist, premiered during ABC Family’s Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas programming event on November 25, 2012.^[125] Similarly to the third film, it does not focus on the McCallister family.^[126] Chris Columbus later revealed that there had been discussions on a sequel starring Kevin’s son: «This was talked about maybe 10 years ago – I don’t know, we were just having fun with it – and we said, ‘What if Kevin is an adult and he has a kid?’ But it was still Pesci and Stern – Pesci and Stern are still obsessed with this kid. They’re going to get this kid.»^[127]

A sixth film was released digitally on Disney+ on November 12, 2021, titled Home Sweet Home Alone.^[128] Devin Ratray, who played Buzz McCallister in the first two films, reprised his role in the film.^[128]

See also[edit]

• List of films featuring home invasions, a plot device in thriller films that Home Alone lampoons^[129]
• List of films featuring fictional films
• List of Christmas films
• Home Alone (video game)

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Home Alone at IMDb
• Home Alone at the TCM Movie Database

[PEOPLE CHATTERING]

Somebody answer the phone.
Where’s my suitcase?

I’m going downstairs.
Who stole my hair dryer?

Miss. Young lady.
Excuse me. Girls.

Hey, hey, little fella.

Excuse me, girls. Girls.
Take the witches!

Hey. Hey, big fella.
Excuse me.

Excuse me! Come help me make
up these beds in the living room!

Come on down here.
Ma’am!

Hi. Hey, son! Son!

Big fella! Hey! Hey!
Little guy. Little guy!

Pete’s brother and his family
are here. It’s crazy.

Trish is going to Montreal.
Montreal?

That’s right. Her
family’s there.

And we’re off.
When do you leave?

Tomorrow. You’re
not ready, are you?

Mom! Uncle Frank won’t let me
watch the movie, but the big kids can.

Why can’t I?
Kevin, I’m on the phone.

When do you come back?
Not till then?

It’s not even rated «R.»
He’s just being a jerk.

Kevin, if Uncle Frank says no,

then it must be really bad.

No, we’re not bringing the dog.
We’re putting him in a…

Hey, hey! Get off.
Kevin, out of the room.

Hang up the phone and make
me, why don’t ya? This kid.

Kate, did you by any chance pick
up a voltage adapter thing?

No, I didn’t have
time to do that.

How am I supposed
to shave in France?

Grow a goatee. Dad,
nobody’ll let me do anything.

Good-bye. You wanna something to do?
I’ve got something for you to do.

Pick up those Micro Machines
that are all over in there.

Aunt Leslie stepped on one
and almost broke her neck.

He was in the garage again
playing with the glue gun.

Didn’t we talk about that?

Did I burn down the joint?
I don’t think so.

I was making ornaments
out of fishhooks.

My new fishhooks?

I can’t make ornaments out of the old ones,
with dry worm guts stuck on ’em.

Peter. Come on,
Kevin. Out.

Peter, Kate, do you guys
have a voltage adapter?

Here! Here’s a voltage adapter.
You’re getting heavy.

Go pack your suitcase.

Pack my suitcase?

Do you know where the shampoo is,
Fuller? I don’t live here.

I don’t believe a house with this
many people, there’s no shampoo.

Pardon me. Are your parents home?
Yeah, but they don’t live here.

Tracy, did you order the pizza?
Buzz did.

Excuse me, miss. Are your parents here?
My parents live in Paris. Sorry.

Hi!
Hi!

Are your parents home?
Yeah.

Do they live here? No.

No. Why should they? All kids, no parents.
Probably a fancy orphanage.

I don’t know how to pack a suitcase.
I’ve never done this once in my whole life.

Tough.
That’s what Megan said.

What did I say?
You told Kevin, «tough.»

The dope was whining about a suitcase.
What am I supposed to do?

Shake his hand and say,
«Congratulations, you’re an idiot»?

I’m not an idiot!
Really? You’re completely helpless!

Everyone has to do everything for you.
She’s right, Kev.

Excuse me, puke-breath. I’m a lot smaller than
you. I don’t know how to pack a suitcase.

I hope you didn’t just pack crap, Jeff.
Shut up, Linnie.

Do you know what
I should pack?

Buzz told you, cheek-face.
Toilet paper and water.

Listen, Kev, what are
you so worried about?

You know mom’s gonna
pack your stuff anyway.

You’re what the French
call les incompetents.

What?
Bombs away!

[BANGING LOUDLY]

P.S. You have to sleep
on the hide-a-bed with Fuller.

If he has something to drink,
he’s gonna wet the bed.

This house is so full of people,
it makes me sick!

When I grow up and get married,
I’m living alone!

Did you hear me?
I’m living alone!

I’m living alone!

Who’s gonna feed your
spider while we’re gone?

He just ate a whole load of mice guts.
He should be good for a couple weeks.

Is it true that French babes
don’t shave their pits?

Some don’t.

But they got nude beaches.

Not in the winter.

♪♪ [TAPE PLAYING, REWINDING]

Buzz? Don’t you know how
to knock, phlegmwad?

Can I sleep in your room? I don’t want
to sleep in a hide the bed with Fuller.

If he has something to drink,
he’ll wet the bed.

I wouldn’t let you sleep in my room
if you were growing on my ass.

[OBJECT CLATTERING]

Check it out.
Old man Marley.

Who is he?

You ever heard of the South
Bend Shovel Slayer!?

No.
That’s him.

Back in ’58, he murdered his whole family
and half the people on his block

with a snow shovel.

Been hiding out in this
neighborhood ever since.

Well, if he’s the Shovel Slayer,
how come the cops don’t arrest him?

Not enough evidence to convict.

They never found the bodies.

But everyone around
here knows he did it.

Now it’ll just be a matter of
time before he does it again.

What’s he doing now?

He walks up and down
the streets every night,

salting the sidewalks.

Maybe he’s just trying
to be nice.

No way.

See that garbage
can full of salt?

That’s where he
keeps his victims.

The salt turns the bodies

into mummies.

Wow.
Mummies.

Look out!

[TIRES SCREECHING]

[GRUNTING]

How you kids doing?
Good?

Lot of action around here today?

Going on vacation?
Where you going?

Do you hear me or what?
Going on a trip?

Where you going, kid?

[KNOCKING]

Okay, that’s 122.50.

Not for me, kid.
I don’t live here.

You just around for the holidays?
I guess you could say that.

Hey, pizza’s here!
Here you go. That’s 122.50.

It’s my brother’s house.
He’ll take care of it.

Hey kids, come on…
Hey, listen…

Hi. Hi.
Are you Mr. McCallister?

Yeah. The Mr. McCallister
who lives here?

Yes. Oh, good, ’cause
somebody owes me 122.50.

I’d like a word with you, sir.
Am I under arrest or something?

No, no. It’s Christmastime. There’s always
a lot of burglaries around the holidays. So

we’re checking the neighborhood to see if
everyone’s taking the proper precautions. That’s all.

Yeah. Well, we have automatic timers
for our lights, locks for our doors.

That’s about as well as anybody
can do these days. Right!

Do you get some eggnog or something
like that? Come on, Dad.

Let’s eat.

Eggnog? Listen, are
you gonna be leaving…

Pizza! Pizza.

Pizza!

Grab yourself a napkin. You’re gonna
have to pour your own drinks.

Mom, does Santa Claus have
to go through customs?

What time do we have
to go to bed? Early.

We’re leaving the house
at 8:00 a.m. on the button.

I hope you’re all drinking milk. I want
to get rid of it. Hey! Don’t you dare.

Honey, the pizza boy needs
$122.50 plus a tip.

For pizza?

10 pizzas times 12 bucks.

Frank, you got the money, don’t you?
Come on. Traveler’s checks.

Forget it, Frank.
We have cash.

You probably got the kind of traveler’s
checks that don’t work in France.

Did anyone order me
a plain cheese?

Yeah, we did.
But if you want any,

somebody’s gonna have to
barf it all up, ’cause it’s gone.

Fuller! Go easy
on the Pepsi.

Kev! Kevin, get a plate.

[IMITATES RETCHING]

[SCREAMING]

Wow!

The passports! Watch it!

Help me out here!

No, let’s get these passports
out of here.

Kevin, get off of him!
You moron!

Are you okay, honey?
Come here. Are you all right?

What is the matter with you?

He started it!
He ate my pizza on purpose.

He knows I hate sausage
and olives and…

Look what you did,
you little jerk!

Kevin, get upstairs right now.
Why?

Kevin, you’re such a disease.
Shut up.

Kevin, upstairs!
Say good night, Kevin.

Good night, Kevin.
Now what’s for dinner?

Why do I always get
treated like scum?

I’m sorry.
This house is just crazy.

We’ve got all these
extra kids running around.

My brother-in-law drove in
from Ohio today. It’s just nuts.

How come you didn’t
bring more cheese pizzas?

Nice tip. Thanks a lot.

Thanks. Having a reunion
or something?

No. My husband’s brother transferred
to Paris last summer,

and all of his kids are still going to school here,
and I guess he missed the whole family.

He’s giving us all this trip to Paris for
holidays, so we can be together.

You’re taking a trip to Paris? Yes,
we hope to leave tomorrow morning.

Excellent. Excellent.

If you’ll excuse me, this one’s
out of sorts. I’ll be right back.

Don’t worry about me.
I spoke to your husband already.

And don’t worry
about your home.

It’s in good hands.

There are 15 people in this house. You’re
the only one who has to make trouble.

I’m the only one getting dumped on.
You’re the only one acting up.

Now get upstairs.
I am upstairs, dummy.

The third floor?
Go.

It’s scary up there. Don’t be silly.
Fuller will be up in a little while.

I don’t want to sleep with Fuller.
You know about him. He wets the bed.

He’ll pee all over me.
I know it.

Fine. We’ll put him
somewhere else.

I’m sorry.

It’s too late.
Get upstairs.

Everyone in this family hates me.

Then maybe you should ask
Santa for a new family.

I don’t want a new family!
I don’t want any family! Families suck!

Stay up there. I don’t want to see
you again for the rest of the night.

I don’t want to see you
again for the rest of my life.

And I don’t want to see
anybody else either.

I hope you don’t mean that.

You’d feel pretty sad if you woke up tomorrow
morning and you didn’t have a family.

No, I wouldn’t.
Then say it again.

Maybe it’ll happen. I hope I
never see any of you jerks again.

I wish they would all just disappear.

[WINDOW SHUTTERS RATTLING]

[BEEPS]

[KNOCKING]

Where are they? I don’t
know. She said 8:00 sharp.

[DOORBELL RINGING]

Peter!

We slept in!

[ALL HUSTLING]

Hi. I’m Mitch Murphy.
I live across the street.

You guys going out of town?
We’re going to Orlando, Florida.

Well, actually, first we’re going
to Missouri to pick up my grandma.

Do you know the McCallisters
are going to France?

Do you know if it’s cold there?
Do these vans get good gas mileage?

Gee, kid, I don’t know.
Hit the road.

[RUSHING CONTINUES]

Heather, do a head count.
Make sure everyone’s in the vans.

Where are the passports
and tickets?

I put ’em in the microwave
to dry ’em off.

How fast does this thing go?

Does it have automatic transmission?
Does it have four-wheel drive?

Look, I told you before, kid,
don’t bother me. Now beat it.

Come on. Hurry up.

Line up in front of the van.
Did you take my batteries?

Line up and shut up!
Wow!

Shut up. I gotta
take a head count.

One, two, three, four, five.
11, 92, 12.

Buzz, don’t be a moron.

Six, seven, eight…

9, 10, 11.

Okay. Half in this van, half in
this van. Come on. Let’s go.

Have a good trip.

Bring me back something French.

There’s no way on earth we’re gonna
make this plane. It leaves in 45 minutes.

Think positive, Frank.
You be positive. I’ll be realistic.

Ma’am? Ma’am?
Excuse me. What?

I just wanted to let you that
know your power’s fixed.

But phone lines are a mess. It’s gonna take
Ma Bell a couple of days to patch ’em up.

Especially around the holidays.
Okay, thanks.

Heather! Did you count heads?
Eleven, including me.

Five boys, six girls, four parents, two
drivers and a partridge in a pear tree.

♪♪ [ROCK AND ROLL]

♪♪ [MAN SINGING]

[CHATTERING]

♪♪ [SINGING CONTINUES]

This way!

Hold the plane!
Did we miss the flight?

No, you just made it.

Single seats only in coach. Take
whatever’s free. Thank you.

I get a window seat!

You kids are in coach.
We’re up here.

Here are your seats. Five «A»and «B»
and four «A»and «B. «

I’ll take your coats.
Thank you.

Fasten your seat belts,
please.

Champagne, please. It’s free,
isn’t it? Oh, yes.

We made it.
Do you believe it?

Hope we didn’t forget anything.

What are you doing
out of costume?

Now get back and get dressed.

I’m terribly sorry. I thought
you were our Santa Claus.

Your Santa Claus is intoxicated.

Oh, no.
Yes.

It’s disgraceful!
How can you allow a man…

[MAN SINGING DRUNKENLY]

Stop that. What do you mean by
drinking? You know it’s not allowed!

But it’s cold. A man’s gotta
do something to keep warm.

I warm you.I ought to
take this cane and…

Somebody, Julia, get some black
coffee and plenty of it. Yes, of course.

Black with a little cream.

Mom?

Thank you.

That’s real crystal. It’s real.
Yeah. So?

Put ’em in your purse. Put ’em!
Put ’em! I can’t do that. Just…

Put them in your purse!

Yeah, fill it up.
Fill it up, please.

Thank you.

Don’t you feel like a heel flying first
class with all the kids back in coach?

No, the kids are fine.

The only flying I ever did as a kid was in the
family station wagon and it wasn’t to France.

We used to have to go around to
Aunt Laura and Uncle Arthur’s house.

The kids are okay. They’re
having the time of their lives.

Yeah.

Hello?

Mom?

Dad?

Mom? Dad?

Where are you guys?

Buzz?

Buzz?

Buzz?

Megan?

Hello? Hello?

Rod? Uncle Frank?

Uncle Frank, is this a joke?

Megan? Linnie?

Is this a joke?

[GROWLING]

[GASPS]

It’s only my imagination.
Only my imagination.

The cars are still here.
They didn’t go to the airport.

I made my family disappear.

Kevin, you’re completely helpless.

You know, Kevin, you’re what
the French call les incompetents.

Kevin, I’m going to feed
you to my tarantula.

Kevin, you are such a disease.

There are 15 people
in this house…

and you’re the only one
who has to make trouble.

Look what you did,
you little jerk.

I made my family disappear.

♪♪ [ROCK AND ROLL]

Kate: Where’s my suitcase?

Harry [disguised as a cop]: Miss. Young lady!

Excuse me. Girls!

[to Fuller] Hey, little fella. Hey!

Excuse me, girls. Girls!

Hey, big fella!

Leslie: Help me make the beds in the living room.

Come on down here!

Harry: Hey, son!

Big fella.

Hey, little guy! Little guy!

Kate: Pete’s brother and his family are here. Trish is going to Montreal.

Woman on phone: Montreal?

Kate: Oh, her family’s there. Then we’re off.

Woman on phone: When?

Kate: Tomorrow.

Woman on phone: You’re not ready, are you?

Kevin: Mom, Uncle Frank won’t let me watch the movie…but the big kids can. Why can’t I?

Kate: Kevin, I’m on the phone.

[on the phone] When do you come back? Not till then?

Kevin: It’s not even rated R. He’s just being a jerk.

Kate: Kevin, if Uncle Frank says no…then it must be really bad.

[on the phone] No, we’re not bringing the dog, we’re putting it in the kennel for the…

[Kevin plops himself on the bed and reads a magazine]

Kate: Hey, get off! Kevin, out of the room.

Kevin: Hang up the phone and make me, why don’t ya?

Kate: This kid.

Peter: Hey, did you pick up a voltage adaptor thing?

Kate: No, I didn’t have time to do that.

Peter: Then how do I shave in France?

Kate: Grow a goatee.

Kevin: Dad, nobody’ll let me do anything.

Peter: I’ve got somethin’, why don’t you pick up those MicroMachines that are all over there. Aunt Leslie stepped on one and almost broke her neck.

Kate: He was in the garage again playing with the glue gun.

[Kevin makes a throat slitting gesture to Kate]

Peter: Didn’t we talk about that?

Kevin: Did I burn down the joint? I don’t think so. I made ornaments out of fish hooks.

Peter: My new fish hooks?

Kevin: I can’t make ornaments outta the old ones…with dry worm guts stuck on ’em.

Kate: Peter.

Peter: Come on, Kevin. Out.

Leslie: Do you guys have a voltage adaptor?

Peter: [hands Kevin to Leslie] Here’s a voltage adapter!

Leslie: God, you’re getting heavy! [puts him down] Go pack your suitcase.

Kevin: Pack my suitcase?

Tracy: Where’s the shampoo?

Fuller: [sitting at the dining room table] I don’t live here!

Tracy: I don’t believe in a house with this many people there’s no shampoo.

Harry: Are your folks home?

Tracy: Yeah, but they don’t live here.

[walks away]

Heather (coming down the stairs): Tracy, did you order the pizza?

Tracy: Buzz did.

Harry: Excuse me. Are your parents here?

Heather: My parents live in Paris, sorry.

[leaves]

Harry: Hi!

Sondra: Hi!

Harry: Are your parents home?

Sondra: Yeah.

Harry: Do they live here?

Sondra: No. [leaves]

Harry: Why should they? All kids, no parents. Probably a fancy orphanage.

Kevin: I don’t know how to pack a suitcase. I’ve never done it once in my whole life!

Jeff: Tough.

Kevin: That’s what Megan said.

Megan: What did I say?

Jeff: You told Kevin «Tough.»

Megan: The dope was whining about a suitcase. What was I supposed to do? Shake his hand and say, «Congratulations, you’re an idiot»?

Kevin: I’m not an idiot!

Megan: Oh, really? You’re completely helpless! Everyone has to do everything for you.

Jeff: She’s right, Kev.

Kevin: Excuse me, puke-breath. I’m small.

I don’t know how to pack.

Linnie: Hey, I hope you didn’t just pack crap, Jeff.

Jeff: Shut up, Linnie.

Kevin: You know what I should pack?

Jeff: Buzz told you, cheek-face. Toilet paper and water.

Linnie: Listen, Kev, what are you so worried about?You know Mom’s gonna pack your stuff, anyway. You’re what the French call «les incompetents.»

Kevin: What?

Jeff: [throws his bag down the stairs which lands at Harry’s feet] Bombs away!

Linnie: P.S. You have to sleep on the hide-a-bed with Fuller. If he has somethin’ to drink, he’s gonna wet the bed.

Kevin: This house is so full of people, it makes me sick! When I grow up and get married, I’m livin’ alone! [Jumps up and down in frustration as Harry looks up at him] Did you hear me? I’m livin’ alone! I’m livin’ alone!

Rod: [taps on the spider’s tank] Who’s gonna feed your spider while we’re gone?

Buzz: He just ate a load of mice guts. He should be good for a couple weeks. Is it true French babes don’t shave their pits?

Rod: Some don’t.

Buzz: But they got nude beaches.

Rod: Not in the winter.

Kevin: Buzz?

Buzz: Don’t you know how to knock, phlegm-wad?

Kevin: Can I sleep in your room? I don’t wanna sleep with Fuller. If he has something to drink, he’ll wet the bed.

Buzz: I wouldn’t let you sleep in my room if you were growing on my ass!

Buzz: Check it out. Old man Marley.

[They all go to the window to see Marley shoveling the sidewalk and salting it]

Rod: Who’s he?

Buzz: You ever heard of the South Bend Shovel Slayer?

Rod: No.

Buzz: That’s him. Back in ’58, he murdered his whole family and half the people on this block…with a snow shovel. Been hidin’ out in this neighborhood ever since.

Rod: If he’s the shovel slayer, how come the cops don’t arrest him?

Buzz: Not enough evidence to convict.

They never found the bodies. But everyone around here knows he did it. It’ll just be a matter of time…before he does it again.

Rod: What’s he doin’ now?

Buzz: He walks up and down the streets every night…salting the sidewalks.

Rod: Maybe he’s just tryin’ to be nice.

Buzz: No way. See that garbage can full of salt? That’s where he keeps his victims. The salt turns the bodies into mummies.

Kevin: [whispering] Mummies!

Buzz: [as Marley spots them, he quickly closes the curtains] Look out!

[Pizza Boy is speeding down Lincoln Blvd. He pulls into the McCallister’s driveway and hits one of the statues. He picks it up and heads to the door]

Harry: [to Brooke and Fuller who are just standing there staring at him] How you kids doin’? Good? Lot of action around here today, huh? Goin’ on vacation? Where you goin’? You hear me, or what? Goin’ on a trip? Where you goin’, kid?

[Knock at door; Harry answers it and opens it for the pizza boy]

Pizza Boy: Okay, that’s $122.50.

Harry: Not from me, kid. I don’t live here.

Pizza Boy: You just around for the holidays?

Harry: I guess you could say that.

Frank: Hey, the pizza’s here! There you go.

Pizza Boy: That’s $122.50.

Frank: It’s my brother’s house. He’ll take care of it.

Harry: Hey, listen…Are you Mr. McCallister?

Peter: Yeah.

Harry: The Mr. McCallister who lives here?

Pizza Boy: Good, because somebody owes me $122.50.

Harry: I’d like a word with you, sir.

Peter: Am I under arrest or somethin’?

Harry: There’s always a lot of burglaries around the holidays. We’re checkin’ the neighborhood to see if the proper precautions are taken, that’s all.

Peter: We have automatic timers for our lights, locks for our doors. That’s about as well as anybody can do these days. Did you get some eggnog?

Buzz: Come on, Dad, let’s eat.

Buzz: Come on.

Harry: Eggnog?

Kevin: Pizza!

Harry: Are you gonna be leaving…?

Kevin: Pizza! Pizza!

Kate: Grab a napkin and you’re gonna have to pour your own drinks.

Brooke: [to Frank] Does Santa have to go through customs?

Fuller: What time do we have to go to bed?

Frank: Early. We’re leaving the house at 8 a.m. on the button.

Kate: I hope you’re all drinking milk. I wanna get rid of it. [to Megan] Don’t you dare!

Frank: Pizza boy needs $122.50, plus tip.

Kate: For pizza?

Frank: Ten pizzas times 12 bucks.

Leslie: Frank, you’ve got money. Come on!

Uncle Frank: Traveler’s checks.

Kate: Forget it, Frank. We have cash.

Peter: You probably got the checks that don’t work in France.

Kevin: Did anyone order me a plain cheese?

Buzz: [stuffing his face with a slice of cheese pizza] Yeah, we did. But if you want any…somebody’s gonna have to barf it all up ’cause it’s gone.

Leslie: Fuller! Go easy on the Pepsi.

Buzz: Kev! Kev, get a plate. [pretends to puke to spite Kevin; Kevin charges towards him knocking the milk over and soaking the passports and tickets]

Peter: Passports!

Uncle Frank: Watch it! [Peter accidentally knocks over the bottle of Pepsi which spills on Frank’s pants; Frank traps Fuller behind his chair]

Peter: No, no. Get these passports out of here. [Kevin’s ticket is accidentally thrown away]

Aunt Leslie: [to Fuller] Are you okay, honey? Come here. Are you all right?

Kate: [to Kevin] What is the matter with you?!

Kevin: He started it! He ate my pizza on purpose. He knows I hate sausage and olives and onions….

Uncle Frank: [wiping dregs of Pepsi off his pants] Look what ya did, ya little jerk!

[the rest of the family stare irately at Kevin]

Kate: Kevin, get upstairs now.

Kevin: Why?

Jeff: Kevin, you’re such a disease.

Kevin: Shut up!

Peter: Kevin, upstairs!

Kate: Say good night, Kevin.

Kevin: «Good night, Kevin.» Why do I get treated like scum?

Kate: [to Pizza Boy] I’m sorry. This house is just crazy. We’ve got all these extra kids running around. My brother-in-law drove in from Ohio today. It’s nuts.

Kevin: How come you didn’t bring more cheese pizzas?

Pizza Boy: Nice tip. Thanks a lot.

Harry: Havin’ a reunion?

Kate: My husband’s brother transferred to Paris last year. His kids are still here. He missed the family, so he invited us to Paris…so we can be together.

[Harry flashes his gold tooth at Kevin]

Harry: You’re takin’ a trip to Paris?

Kate: Yes, we hope to leave tomorrow morning.

Harry: Excellent. Excellent.

Kate: If you’ll excuse me, this one’s a little out of sorts. I’ll be right back.

Harry: Don’t worry about me. I spoke to your husband already. And don’t worry about your home. It’s in good hands.

[Harry leaves]

Kate: There are 15 people in this house. You’re the only one who has to make trouble.

Kevin: I’m the only one getting dumped on.

Kate: You’re the only one acting up. Now get upstairs.

Kevin: I am upstairs, dummy. [Kate opens the door leading to the attic] The third floor?

Kate: Go.

Kevin: It’s scary up there.

Kate: Don’t be silly. Fuller will be up in a little while.

Kevin: I don’t wanna sleep with Fuller. You know all about him. He wets the bed. He’ll pee all over me. I know it.

Kate: Fine. We’ll put him somewhere else.

Kevin: I’m sorry.

Kate: It’s too late. Get upstairs.

Kevin: Everyone in this family hates me!

Kate: Then maybe you should ask Santa for a new family.

Kevin: I don’t want a new family. I don’t want any family. Families suck!

Kate: Just stay up there. I don’t wanna see you again for the rest of the night.

Kevin: I don’t wanna see you again for the rest of my whole life. And I don’t wanna see anybody else either.

Kate: I hope you don’t mean that. You’d feel pretty sad if you woke up tomorrow morning and you didn’t have a family.

Kevin: No, I wouldn’t.

Kate: Then say it again. Maybe it’ll happen.

Kevin: I hope I never see any of you jerks again!

[Laying in the bed, in his head] I wish they would all just disappear.

[Overnight, a storm causes a tree branch to break and hit the power lines creating an electricity outage which shorts out the transformer nearby. This results in Peter and Kate’s alarm clock resetting to 12:00am; cut to morning where van drivers knock on door]

Van Driver: Where are they?

2nd Van Driver: I don’t know. She said 8 sharp.

[Doorbell rings as Kate looks at her watch]

Kate: Peter!

(Peter and Kate wake up, looking surprised.)

Both: We slept in!

[Everyone wakes up, runs around the house like headless chickens trying to get ready. Mitch Murphy walks up to the vans.]

Mitch Murphy: Hi, I’m Mitch Murphy. I live across the street. You guys goin’ out of town? We’re going to Florida. Well, actually, first we’re going to Missouri to pick up my grandma. You know the McCallisters are going to France? Do you know if it’s cold there? Do these vans get good gas mileage?

Driver: Gee, kid, I don’t know. Hit the road!

Kate: Heather, do a head count. Get everyone in the vans. Where are the passports and tickets?

Peter: I put them in the microwave to dry ’em off.

Mitch Murphy: How fast does this thing go? Does it have automatic transmission? Does it have 4-wheel drive?

Van Driver: Look, I told you before, kid. Don’t bother me. Now, beat it!

Heather: Line up in front of the van. Line up and shut up!

Mitch: [looks through a bag of goodies; takes a picture with a disposable camera] Wow!

Heather: Shut up! I need a head count.

Heather: One, two, three…

Buzz: [interrupting her] 11, 92, 12…

Heather: Buzz, don’t be a moron. Six, seven, eight, nine [counts Mitch as Kevin], ten, [counts herself again] eleven.

Heather: Okay, half in this van, half in this van. Let’s go.

Mitch Murphy: [waves as he walks away] Have a good trip. Bring me back somethin’ French.

Uncle Frank: There’s no way on Earth we’re gonna make this plane. It leaves in 45 minutes.

Peter: Think positive, Frank.

Uncle Frank: You be positive. I’ll be realistic.

Utility worker: Excuse me ma’am, I just wanted to let you know that your power is fixed…but the phone lines are a mess. It’s gonna take Ma Bell a couple of days to patch ’em up…especially around the holidays.

Kate: Thanks.

[closes the van door without really listening]

Kate: Heather, did you count heads?

Heather: Eleven, including me. Five boys, six girls, four parents, two drivers…and a partridge in a pear tree.

[The scene cuts to the airport, where they’re all running to catch the flight.]

Peter: Hold the plane!

Kate: Did we miss the flight?

Gate attendant: No, you just made it.

All: Yay!

Attendant: Single seats only in coach. Take whatever’s free.

All: Thank you! Bye!

Jeff: I get a window seat!

Uncle Frank: You kids are in coach, we’re up here.

Leslie: Seats Four A and B.

Stewardess: Four A and B. I’ll take your coats. Fasten your seat belts please.

Frank: Champagne, please. It’s free, isn’t it?

Stewardess: Oh, yes.

Peter: We made it. Do you believe it?

Kate: Hope we didn’t forget anything.

Kevin: Mom?

Frank: That’s real. It’s real crystal.

Leslie: Yeah, so?

Frank: [telling Leslie to take the silverware] Put ’em in your purse.

Leslie: Frank, I can’t do that.

Frank: Just… put them in your purse!

Frank: Yeah. Fill it up. Fill it up. Fill it up, please. Thank you.

Kate: Don’t you feel like a heel, flying first class with the kids in coach?

Peter: No. The kids are fine. The only time I ever flew as a kid was in the station wagon, not to France. We used to have to go to Aunt Laura and Uncle Arthur’s house. Kids are okay. They’re having the time of their lives.

Kevin: Hello? Mom? Dad? Mom? Dad? Where are you guys? Buzz? Buzz? Megan? Hello? Hello? Rod? Uncle Frank? [Goes into the basement] Uncle Frank, is this a joke? Megan? Linnie? Is this a joke? It’s only my imagination. Only my imagination. [the furnace starts up, he runs upstairs and out to the driveway; he discovers that the garage is open] The cars are still here. They didn’t go to the airport!

[He goes back inside and sits at the island]

Kevin: [apprehensively] I made my family disappear.

[thinks back to family members saying bad things about him.]

Megan: Kevin, You’re completely helpless.

Linnie: You know, Kevin, you’re what the French call «les incompetents.»

Buzz: Kevin, I’m going to feed you to my tarantula.

Jeff: Kevin, you are such a disease!

Kate: There are 15 people in this house, and you’re the only one who has to make trouble.

Uncle Frank: Look what you did, you little jerk!

Kevin: [Happily] I made my family disappear.

[Kevin celebrates his freedom]

Kevin: I’m free! Woo! [jumps up and down on his parent’s bed eating a bowl of popcorn wearing boots]

Wow!

[Looks at a Playboy magazine in Buzz’s trunk; throws it behind him] No clothes on anybody. Sickening!

[Finds some firecrackers]

Cool! Firecrackers! I’ll save these for later. Buzz, I’m going through all your private stuff. You better come out and pound me!

[Sees a picture of Buzz’s girlfriend; turns the picture over and the glass in the frame breaks]

Buzz, your girlfriend! Woof!

[Kevin watches a film called Angels with Filthy Souls and is eating a bowl of ice cream]

Johnny: Who is it?

Snakes. It’s me. Snakes. I got the stuff.

Johnny: Leave it on the doorstep and get the hell outta here.

Snakes: All right, Johnny, but what about my money?

Johnny: What money?

Snakes: Acey said you had some dough for me.

Johnny: Is that a fact? How much do I owe ya?

Snakes: Acey said ten percent.

Johnny: Too bad Acey ain’t in charge no more.

Snakes: Whaddya mean?

Kevin: [movie continues as he says this] Guys, I’m eating junk and watching rubbish! You better come out and stop me!

Johnny; He’s upstairs takin’ a bath. He’ll call you when he gets out. Hey. I tell you what I’m gonna give you, Snakes. I’m gonna give you to the count of ten…to get your ugly, yella, no-good keister off my property…before I pump your guts full of lead.

Snakes [calmly]: All right, Johnny, I’m sorry. I’m goin’.

Johnny: One, two… ten.

[The gunfire starts, Snakes is dead]

Johnny: Keep the change, you filthy animal.

Kevin: MOM!

[Meanwhile, on the airplane. Kate opens up her eyes and lifted her head up.]

Peter: What’s the matter? Honey?

Kate: I have a terrible feeling.

Peter: About what?

Kate: That we didn’t do something.

Peter: You feel that way because we left in a hurry. We took care of everything.

Kate: Did I turn off the coffee?

Peter: No. I did.

Kate: Did you lock up?

Peter: Yeah.

Kate: Did you close the garage?

Peter: That’s it. I forgot to close the garage. That’s it.

Kate: No, that’s not it.

Peter: What else could we be forgetting?

Kate: [sits bolt upright] KEVIN!

Stewardess: The captain’s doing all he can. Your phones are out of order.

Leslie: We’ll call when we land. I’m sure it’s okay.

Frank: Horrible. Horrible. Just horrible.

Kate: How could we do this? We forgot him.

Peter: We didn’t forget him, we just miscounted.

Kate: What kind of mother am I?

Frank: If it makes you feel any better, I forgot my reading glasses.

[Harry and Marv are observing houses on Lincoln Blvd. from their truck]

Harry: Five families gone on one block alone. They all told me from their own mouths. It’s almost too easy. Check it out: All the houses with nobody home…have automatic timers on their lights. But I got it all figured out. Watch this. Number 664… will be going on right about…now. [it does] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Number 672…right…now. [does so] Wait a minute. Wait a minute. 671…now. [It lights up too] And that’s the one, Marvin. That’s the silver tuna.

Marv: It’s very G.

Harry: Very G, huh? It’s loaded. It’s got lots of topflight goods. Stereos, VCRs…

Marv: Toys?

Harry: Probably lookin’ at some very fine jewelry. Possible cash hoard. Odd marketable securities. Who knows? It’s a gem. Grab your crowbar.

[they bang the crowbars together]

Crowbars up.

[Kevin is asleep; the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas is on TV]

🎵You’re a rotter, Mr. Grinch. You’re the king of sinful sots. Your heart’s a dead tomato. Blotched with moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch…🎵

Marv: Which way?

Harry: We’ll go around back, down the basement.

[Kevin wakes up and spots them through the window; he turns on all the lights]

Marv: Thought you said they were gone.

Harry: They were supposed to leave this morning.

Marv: Let’s get out of here.

A French woman at the airport is on the phone; they are pushing to get her off]

We have to use the phone, please. It’s an emergency. We really have to make a call. Please! Our brother’s home alone. Give us the phone! I’m sorry. Thank you.

I’m calling the police.

Kate: Book us a flight home. Get change out of here. Call everybody you know. Here’s my address book. You and Frank call everyone on our street. Maybe somebody can help us. Hello? Hello? Oh, she’ll have to call you back. [disconnects the call and puts money in]

Kevin [hiding under Peter and Kate’s bed] This is ridiculous. Only a wimp would be hiding under a bed. And I can’t be a wimp. I’m the man of the house.

[goes outside]

Hey, I’m not afraid anymore! I said, I’m not afraid anymore! Do you hear me? I’m not afraid anymore. [sees Marley; screams, runs back inside and hides under the covers]

Rose: Village police department.

Kate: I’m calling from Paris. I have a son who’s home alone. I’d like somebody to go over there. Tell him that we’re coming home to get him.

Rose: Okay, let me connect you with Family Crisis Intervention. Hold on. [knocks on window next to her] Larry, can you pick up? There’s some lady on hold. She sounds kinda hyper.

Larry: What line, Rose?

Rose: Uh, two.

[as he is eating a donut]

Larry: Family Crisis Intervention, Sergeant Balzac.

Kate: I’m calling from Paris. I have a son who’s home alone.

Larry: Has the child been involved in violence with a drunk family member?

Kate: No!

Larry: Has he been involved in a household accident?

Kate: I don’t know. I hope not.

Larry: Has the child ingested any poison or is an object lodged in his throat?

Kate: No, he’s just home alone!

[a piece of donut falls from Larry’s phone]

I’d like somebody to go over to the house…and see if he’s all right, just to check on him.

Larry: You want us to go over to your house, just to check on him?

Kate: Yes!

Larry: Let me connect you to the police department.

Kate: They just transferred me to you.

Larry: Rose!

Rose: Yeah.

Larry: Hyper on two. Hold on, please.

Kate: No, please don’t hang up. Please! Any luck?

Linnie: I couldn’t get anybody.

Kate: Leslie?

Leslie: Nothin’ but a bunch of answering machines.

Kate: Somebody pick up. PICK UP!!!

Rose: Oh, hi, ma’am. It’s you again.

Kate: Look, I’m calling from Paris. I have a son who’s home alone, and l…

Rose: Okay. We’ll send a policeman over to your house to check on your son.

[policeman does nothing more than knock on the door which frightens Kevin]

Policeman: There’s no one home. The house looks secure. Tell them to count their kids again.

[leaves]

[Peter is talking to the ticket agent at the desk]

You can’t bump somebody or ask or…?

French ticket agent: There’s no way I can do that.

Peter: Isn’t there a way if you ask somebody? If you said it’s an emergency…

French ticket agent: I cannot ask them.

Kate: She’s sending a policeman over to the house to check on Kevin.

Peter: Well, that’s a relief. Everything here is booked.

Kate: Nothing to Chicago?

Peter: There’s nothing to Chicago, New York, Nashville, you name it. Everything’s gone. What about a private plane?

French ticket agent: Sorry. We don’t do that.

Peter: The only thing is a booking for us on Friday morning.

Kate: Friday morn… That’s two days away.

Peter: The kids are exhausted, and so are you. There’s nothing we can do here. I say we go over to Rob’s, and that way we can call the police again and they can get back to us.

Kate: I’m not leaving here unless it’s on an airplane.

French ticket agent: Madame, we are doing everything we can. If you want to stay at the airport, maybe we can get you on standby. It is a possibility that a seat will open up. Is that okay?

Kate: Yes. I’ll wait.

Peter: I’ll miss you, honey.

Peter: Don’t you get lost.

Kate: Goodbye.

Kevin: I took a shower, washing every body part with actual soap. Including all my major crevices…and between my toes and in my belly button…which I never did before but sort of enjoyed. I washed my hair with adult formula shampoo and used creme rinse for that just washed shine. I can’t find my toothbrush, so I’ll pick one up when I go out today. Other than that, I’m in good shape.

[Kevin screams in agony after putting on aftershave]

[Climbs on Buzz’s shelves causing them to break and let the tarantula out]

All right! Buzz’s life savings.

[notices a van in the Murphy’s driveway] I thought the Murphys went to Florida.

[Harry and Marv are in the Murphy’s house robbing it]

Harry: [as Marv is making noise clearing a curio cabinet with his crowbar] Y’know you’re one of the great cat burglars of the world, Marv? Ya think you can keep it down a little in there, huh?

Murphy’s answering machine: Hi, you’ve reached the Murphy’s. Please leave a message after the beep.

Peter [on answering machine]: Chuck, this is Peter McCallister again, and we’re in Paris at my brother’s apartment. Let me give you the number here, okay? The country code is 3-3. The area code is 1-4. And the number is 694–876…

Marv: Hey, Harry.

Harry: Yeah?

Marv. That house we were at last night, was that the McCallister’s?

Harry: Yeah.

Peter: Call me in Paris.

Marv: You’re right. They’re gone.

Harry: I knew they were.

Marv: Silver tuna tonight.

Harry: [looking through kaleidoscope] Wow!

[Kevin is now at Hubbard’s Pharmacy picking up a toothbrush]

Drugstore Clerk: How may I help you?

Kevin: Is this toothbrush approved by the American Dental Association?

Drugstore Clerk: [looks at it] Well, I don’t know. It doesn’t say, hon.

Kevin: Can you please find out?

Drugstore Clerk: Herb.

Herb: Yeah?

Drugstore Clerk: I got a question here about a toothbrush. Do you know, is this brush approved by the American Dental Association?

[at this point, Marley has approached the counter with a crudely bandaged hand and places it in the counter]

Herb: I don’t know.

[Kevin, frightened, slowly backs away as Marley looks at him]

Drugstore Clerk: Oh, hon, you pay for that here. Wait, son, you have to pay for that toothbrush. Son? Son! Hey! Jimmy, stop that boy!

[Kevin runs out of the pharmacy]

Jimmy: Hey! Hey!

[to cop writing a ticket] Shoplifter!

Cop [chasing Kevin]: Hey! Hey, kid! Come back here! Stop it, will ya? Come here.

[Kevin slides on his knees through an ice skater; cop collides with a hockey player] Yee-haw!

Kevin [walking down the street]: I’m a criminal.

[Marv is inside the Murphy home and has just plugged up the sinks with dish towels and left them running; he closes the door and gets in the van]

Harry: What’s so funny? What’s so funny? What are you laughin’ at? You did it again, didn’t ya? You left the water running, didn’t ya? What’s wrong with you? Why do you do that? I told you not to do it.

Marv: Harry, it’s our calling card.

Harry: Calling card.

Marv: All the great ones leave their mark. We’re the wet bandits.

Harry: You’re sick, you know that? You’re really sick.

[They’re pulling out of the driveway as Kevin is walking on the sidewalk]

Marv: I’m not sick.

Harry: Yes, you are!

Marv: I’m not sick!

Harry: That’s a sick thing to do! We don’t need that kind of heat.

Marv: Don’t tell me what to do! I can do it if I want to!

Harry: You’re sick!

Marv: It’s not sick! Hey, watch out!

[they almost plow down Kevin]

Harry: Hey! Hey! You’ve gotta watch for traffic, son, y’know?

Kevin: Sorry.

Harry: Damn.

Marv: Santy don’t visit the funeral homes, little buddy.

Harry: Okay, okay. Merry Christmas.

[smiles flashing his gold tooth]

Marv: What’s the matter?

Harry: I don’t like the way that kid looked at me. Did ya see that?

Marv: Ever seen him before?

Harry: I saw a hundred kids this week.

Marv: Let’s see what house he goes into.

[they slowly follow him; when he turns around, they stop, look around and whistle; once Kevin turns back around, they continue following him and Kevin starts to run]

Marv: Why’s he goin’ faster?

Harry: I told you somethin’s wrong. See, I knew he looked at me weird. Why would he run?

[Kevin is hiding in the nativity scene outside the church]

Marv: [rolls down his window] Maybe he went in the church.

Harry: I’m not goin’ in there.

Marv: Me neither.

Harry: Let’s get outta here.

Kevin: When those guys come back, I’ll be ready.

[cut to later where Kevin has set up some mannequins to make them think the house is full of people]

Marv: Did they come back?

Harry: From Paris? We’ll come back tomorrow. Maybe they’ll be gone. We better get outta here before somebody sees us.

[cut to Rob and Georgette’s apartment]

Frank [holding a plate of shrimp]: Look what I found in the kitchen.

Georgette: Frank, those are for later.

Frank: Mes petit enfants, do you want a little shrimp, huh?

Peter: [on the phone] Do you speak English? Well, is there…

Did you get anybody?

Peter: I am looking for my son, do you know where he is?

No, I can’t find anybody. They’re all shopping. Nobody’s home for the holidays. Never mind, forget it.

Megan: This is so pointless.

Buzz: What?

Megan: We’re here rotting in this apartment. Kevin’s at home. Mom’s at the airport.

Buzz: So?

Megan: You’re not at all worried about Kevin?

Buzz: Why should I be? He’s acted like a jerk one too many times, and now he caught it in the butt.

Megan: He’s so little and helpless. Don’t you think he’s flipped out?

Buzz: The trout can use a couple of days in the real world.

You’re not worried that something might happen to him?

Buzz: No. For three reasons: A. I’m not that lucky. Two: We have smoke detectors…and D: We live in the most boring street in the whole United States of America where nothing even remotely dangerous will ever happen. Period.

[Pizza Boy yet again speeds down Lincoln Blvd. to the McAllisters and hits the same statue as before; he picks it up, goes to the front door and reads the note telling him to go the back door]

[Kevin plays the movie]

Johnny: Who is it?

Pizza Boy: It’s Little Nero’s, sir. I have your pizza.

Johnny: Leave it on the doorstep and get the hell outta here.

Pizza Boy: Okay. What about the money?

Johnny: What money?

Pizza Boy: Well, you have to pay for your pizza, sir.

Johnny: Is that a fact? How much do I owe ya?

Pizza Boy: That’ll be $11.80, sir.

[Kevin slips $12 through the dog door]

Johnny: Keep the change, ya filthy animal.

Pizza Boy: Cheapskate.

Johnny: Hey. I’m gonna give you to the count of ten…to get your ugly, yella, no-good keister off my property…before I pump your guts full of lead. One, two… ten.

[gunshots from the movie scare Pizza Boy; he trips over garbage cans. Runs to his car and speeds off]

[Kevin opens the door and brings the pizza inside] A lovely cheese pizza, just for me.

PA System: To Dallas/Fort Worth. American Airlines…

Kate: So we have the $500, the pocket translator…the two first-class seats, that’s an upgrade…

Irene: Is that a real Rolex?

Kate: Do you think it is?

Irene: No.

Kate: But who can tell? I also have a ring.

Irene: Oh, that is beautiful!

Ed: They’re boarding.

Irene: She’s offered us two first-class tickets if we go Friday. Plus a ring, a watch, a pocket translator, $500, and…

Kate: The earrings. You love the earrings.

Ed: She’s got her own earrings. A whole shoebox full of ’em. Dangly ones. [pulling Irene away] Come on, come on.

Irene: No, but…

Kate: I’m desperate. I’m begging you. From a mother to a mother. Please!

Irene: Oh, Ed. Please!

Ed: Oh, all right.

[Kevin is watching the Ed Sullivan Show in Peter and Kate’s room]

Ed Sullivan: «Dear Santa, I got a little sister last year. This year I’d rather have some Clay-Doh.»

[looking at a picture of the family]

Kevin: I didn’t mean it. If you come back, I’ll never be a pain in the butt again. I promise. Good night. [puts picture on nightstand]

🎵I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. Just like the ones I used to know. Where those treetops glisten, and children listen, to hear sleigh bells in the snow, the snow🎵 [Kevin puts aftershave on and screams in agony like the first time]

[Kevin is in the supermarket at the checkout]

Kevin: Are those microwave dinners any good?

Checkout girl: I don’t know.

Kevin: I’ll give ’em a whirl.

[she holds up a bag of army men]

Kevin: For the kids. [gets out a coupon for the orange juice] Hold on, I got a coupon for that. It was in the paper this morning.

Checkout girl: $19.83.

Kevin: Okay.

Checkout girl: Are you here all by yourself?

Kevin: Ma’am, I’m 8 years old. You think I’d be here alone? I don’t think so.

Checkout girl: Where’s your mom?

Kevin: My mom is in the car.

Checkout girl: Where’s your father?

Kevin: He’s at work.

Checkout girl: What about your brothers and your sisters?

Kevin: I’m an only child.

Checkout girl: Where do you live?

Kevin: I can’t tell you that.

Checkout girl: Why not?

Kevin: Cause you’re a stranger.

[Kevin is walking home, and the bags with the groceries break; Kevin is in the basement putting in a load of laundry when the furnace opens]

Furnace: Hello, Kevin!

Kevin: Shut up!

Harry: I don’t get it. It looks like there’s nobody home. Last night the place was jumpin’. Somethin’ ain’t right. Go check it out.

Marv: Now?

Harry: No, tomorrow, egghead! Now! Go ahead. «Now.»

[Kevin is washing dishes when Marv drops his shoe through the dog door; plays movie]

Marv: Shit.

Johnny: Get the hell outta here.

Snakes: All right, Johnny. But what about my money?

Johnny: What money?

Snakes: Acey said you had some dough for me.

Johnny: Is that a fact? How much do I owe ya?

[Kevin is readying the firecrackers with a pot and lighter]

Snakes: Acey said ten percent.

Johnny: Too bad Acey ain’t in charge no more.

Snakes: Whaddya mean?

Johnny: He’s upstairs, takin’ a bath. He’ll call you when he gets out. Hey, I tell you what I’m gonna give you, Snakes.

Marv: [listening by the door] Snakes?

Johnny: I’m gonna give you to the count of ten…to get your ugly, yella, no-good keister off my property…before I pump your guts full of lead.

Snakes: All right, Johnny. I’m sorry. I’m goin’.

Johnny: One, two… ten.

[Kevin lights the firecrackers as the sound of gunshots play]

Kevin: [mouths the words as Johnny says them] Keep the change, you filthy animal.

[Marv runs back to the van]

Harry: What happened?

Marv: I don’t know who’s in there, but somebody just got blown away! Somebody beat us to the job, they’re in there! Two of ’em. There was arguing. One of ’em blew the other one away.

Harry: Who?

Marv: I don’t know. I recognized one of their voices. I know I heard that name «Snakes» before.

Harry: [thinking] Snakes? Snakes. Snakes. I don’t know no Snakes. Snakes.

Marv: Let’s get out of here.

Harry: Hold it. Hold it. Let’s wait and see who it is. We work this neighborhood too. Suppose the cops finger us for a job…and they start askin’ us questions about a murder in the area. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a face to go with their questions?

Marv: [contemplates this for a minute] That’s a good idea.

Harry: Of course it’s a good idea. Snakes?

Marv: He sounded like a snake.

—

[The airport, ticket desk.]

Scranton ticket agent: Everything’s full.

Kate: Everything’s full?

Scranton ticket agent:I’m very sorry, but it is Christmas Eve.

Kate: What about another airline?

Scranton ticket agent: Nothing available. May I help you get a hotel room? Tomorrow we can get you a flight.

Kate: I can’t wait that long.

Scranton ticket agent: I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re doing absolutely everything we can.

Kate: [to woman waiting] I’m in your way. I’m sorry. You’ve places to go. Got a ticket there, good. [pushes woman out of the way] Excuse me. Look, I have been awake for almost 60 hours. I’m tired and I’m dirty. I have been from Chicago to Paris, to Dallas, to…where the hell am I?

Scranton ticket agent: Scranton.

Kate: I’m trying to get home to my 8-year-old son. Now you’re telling me it’s hopeless?

Scranton ticket agent: I’m sorry.

Kate: No, no, no, no. No way. This is Christmas! The season of perpetual hope. I don’t care if I have to get on your runway and hitchhike…if it costs me everything I own…if I have to sell my soul to the Devil himself…I am going to get home to my son.

Scranton ticket agent: Ma’am, if there was anything…

Kate: Do it. Do anything.

Scranton ticket agent: I can get you a hotel room.

[Gus has been observing from a distance]

Kate: What?

Gus: Can you excuse us for a sec? Can I see you for a second, please? Excuse us.

[pulls Kate aside]

You got a little bit of a dilemma. We got a crisis ourselves. Allow me to introduce myself. Gus Polinski. Polka King of the Midwest?

[Kate looks confused]

Gus: The Kenosha Kickers? Hi there. Hiya. That’s okay. I thought you might have recognized…I had a few hits a few years ago. That’s why I just… «Polka, Polka, Polka»? 🎵Polka, polka, polka🎵, «Twin Lakes Polka»? «Yamahoozie Polka,» a.k.a. «Kiss Me Polka»? «Polka Twist»?

Kate: These are songs?

Gus: Yeah. Yeah, we… Some fairly big hits for us. Y’know, in the early ’80s. Yeah, we sold about 623 copies of that.

Kate: In Chicago?

Gus: No, Sheboygan. Very big in Sheboygan.

Kate: Did you say you could help me?

Gus: Anyway, I’m ramblin’ on here. Our flight was canceled…so we’re gonna drive. See the guy in the yellow jacket over there by the Budget sign? He’s gonna rent us a nice big van to drive to Milwaukee. Now, I heard you had some problems gettin’ to Chicago? To see your kid or somethin’ ?

Kate: Uh, my son. He… We left, and he’s there.

Gus: Oh, gee. If you have to get to Chicago, we’ll gladly drive ya. It’s on the way to Milwaukee.

Kate: You’d give me a ride?

Gus: Sure, why not? You’ve gotta get home.

Kate: A ride to Chicago?

Gus: Sure, it’s Christmastime.

Kate: Thank you. Oh, thank you.

Gus: If you don’t mind goin’ with polka bums?

Kate: No, I’d love to.

—

[The McAllister house: outside, living room, and Harry and Marv’s van.]

[Kevin is on a ladder cutting down a tree; when Harry spots him]

Harry: Hey, Marv. [wakes him up] Marv, Marv! Look at this. I think we’re gettin’ scammed by a kindygartner.

[Harry and Marv are looking in through the window when Kevin catches their reflection in an ornament he’s putting on the tree; pretends to ask for help]

Kevin: Dad, can you come here and help me?

Harry: Remember that kid we saw the other day? He lives here.

Marv: If the kid’s here, the parents gotta be.

Harry: He’s home alone.

Marv: What? You wanna come back tonight?

Harry: Uh huh.

Marv: Even with the kid here?

Harry: Uh huh.

Marv: I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Harry: Look, that house is the only reason we started workin’ this block. Ever since I laid my eyes on that house, I wanted it.

[Kevin opens the window and is listening to the next speech.]

Harry: Let’s take it one step at a time. We’ll unload the van, get a bite to eat, we’ll come back about 9:00.

Kevin [whispering]: Nine o’clock.

Harry: This way it’s dark then.

Marv: Yeah, kids are a-scared of the dark.

Harry: You’re afraid of the dark too, Marv. You know you are.

Marv: No, I’m not.

Harry: Yes, you are.

Marv: Not, not, not.

Harry: You are so.

Kevin [to himself]: Mom, where are you?

—

[Rental van used by the Polka band.]

[the band is playing «Deck the Halls»; Gus is trying to get Kate to play, but she politely refuses]

Gus: Do you play? Do you wanna try? Go ahead, try it. Try it!

Kate: No.

Gus: Okay.

[Kevin is walking up to a small shack where a woman dressed as an elf is coming out]

Kevin: Excuse me.

Santa’s Elf: Yeah?

Kevin: Hey, nice shoes.

Santa’s Elf: Oh, thanks.

Kevin: Is he still here? It’s really important that I see him.

Santa’s Elf: He’s gettin’ in his car. If you hurry, you can catch him.

«Santa»: How low can you go! Giving Kris Kringle a parking ticket on Christmas Eve! What’s next, rabies shots for the Easter Bunny?

Kevin: Santa, hold on. Can I talk to you for a minute?

«Santa»: Quickly. Santa’s got a little get together he’s late for.

Kevin: I know you’re not the real Santa Claus.

«Santa» [smoking a cigarette; his fake beard is pulled down] Huh, what makes you say that? Just out of curiosity. [Pulls the beard up]

Kevin: I’m old enough to know how it works.

«Santa»: All right.

Kevin: But I also know you work for him. I’d like you to give him a message.

«Santa»: Shoot.

Kevin: Kevin McCallister, 671 Lincoln Blvd. Do you need the phone number?

«Santa»: No, that’s all right.

Kevin: This is extremely important. Please tell him instead of presents, I just want my family back. No toys. Nothing but Peter, Kate, Buzz, Megan, Linnie and Jeff. And my aunt and my cousins. And if he has time, my Uncle Frank. Okay?

«Santa»: Okay. I’ll see what I can do.

Kevin: Thanks.

«Santa»: Wait. My elf took the last of the candy canes home to her boyfriend.

Kevin: That’s okay.

«Santa»: No, don’t be silly. Everybody who sees Santa has got to get somethin’. Here, hold out your little paw there.

[He pours out a few mint Tic-Tacs into Kevin’s glove.]

There you go. Don’t spoil your dinner.

Kevin: I won’t. Thanks.

[«Santa» gets in his car and starts it, only for it to stall]

«Santa»: Son of a…

—

[Kevin is in the church; Marley is sitting in a nearby pew and asks Kevin if he can sit with him. The choir is singing «O Holy Night»]

Marley: Merry Christmas. May I sit down? That’s my granddaughter. The little red-haired girl. She’s about your age. You know her?

Kevin. No.

Marley: You live next to me, don’t you? You can say hello when you see me. You don’t have to be afraid. There’s a lot of things going around about me, but none of its true. Okay? You’ve been good this year?

Kevin: I think so.

Marley: You swear to it?

Kevin: No.

Marley: Yeah. Well, this is the place to be if you’re feeling bad about yourself.

Kevin: It is?

Marley: I think so.

Kevin: Are you feeling bad about yourself?

Marley: No.

Kevin: I’ve been kind of a pain lately. I said some things I shouldn’t have. I really haven’t been too good this year. Yeah. I’m kind of upset because I really like my family. Even though sometimes I say I don’t. Sometimes I even think I don’t. Do you get that?

Marley: I think so. How you feel about family is a complicated thing.

Kevin: Especially with an older brother.

Marley: Deep down, you’ll always love him. But you can forget that you love him. You can hurt them, they can hurt you. That’s not just because you’re young. You wanna know the real reason why I’m here?

Kevin: Sure.

Marley: I came to hear my granddaughter sing. I can’t come hear her tonight.

Kevin: You have plans?

Marley: No. I’m not welcome.

Kevin: At church?

Marley: You’re always welcome at church. I’m not welcome with my son. Years back, before you and your family moved on the block…I had an argument with my son.

Kevin: How old is he?

Marley: He’s grown up. We lost our tempers, and I said I didn’t care to see him anymore. He said the same, and we haven’t spoken to each other since.

Kevin: If you miss him, why don’t you call him?

Marley: I’m afraid if I call, he won’t talk to me.

Kevin: How do you know?

Marley: I don’t know. I’m just afraid he won’t.

Kevin: No offense, but aren’t you a little old to be afraid?

Marley: You can be old for a lot of things. You’re never too old to be afraid.

Kevin: That’s true. I was afraid of our basement. It’s dark. There’s weird stuff down there, and it smells funny. That sort of thing. It’s bothered me for years.

Marley: Basements are like that.

Kevin: I made myself go down to do some laundry…and I found out it’s not so bad. I worried about it, but if you turn on the lights, it’s no big deal.

Marley: What’s your point?

Kevin: My point is, you should call your son.

Marley: What if he won’t talk to me?

Kevin: At least you’ll know. Then you could stop worrying about it. You won’t have to be afraid anymore. No matter how mad I was, I’d talk to my dad. Especially around the holidays.

Marley: I don’t know.

Kevin: Just give it a shot. For your granddaughter anyway. I’m sure she misses you. And the presents.

Marley: I send her a check.

Kevin: I wish my grandparents did that. They always send me clothes. Last year I got a sweater with a big bird knitted on it.

Marley: Oh, that’s nice.

Kevin: Not for a guy in the second grade. You can get beat up for wearing something like that. I have a friend who got nailed because there was a rumor he wore dinosaur pajamas.

Marley: You better run home where you belong. Think about what I said. All right?

Kevin: Okay.

Marley: It’s nice talking to you.

Kevin: Nice talking to you. What about you?

Marley: Me?

Kevin: Yeah. You and your son.

Marley: We’ll see what happens. Merry Christmas.

Kevin: Merry Christmas.

[He walks up the aisle. The bell rings for eight o’clock; he remembers what time Harry and Marv will strike at, and runs through the town, to back home, getting in shortly after the lights come on.]

—

[McAllister House, front door. Kevin closes the door behind himself and locks it.]

Kevin: This is my house. I have to defend it. [He lays out his battle plan. A montage follows: laying out his Micro Machines at the foot of the staircase; pouring cold water on the front steps; taking a metal loop from the barbeque and attaching it to the front doorknob; spraying cold water from the hosepipe on the outdoor steps to the basement; painting the inside basement steps with tar; fitting a nail through some tough paper; climbing into the treehouse to attach a zipline from the attic window; pouring glue on clingfilm; moving a motorised fan with a load of feathers before it to the dining room door; spreading Christmas decorations on the floor by the window near the tree; filling two paint tins with string and carrying them off. The Christmas tree lights come on, and the microwave pings with Kevin’s dinner.]

[Harry and Marv pull up in their van.]

Harry: Okay, we’ll check it out first. We can always come back for the truck.

Marv: How do you wanna go in?

Harry: We’ll go to the back door. Maybe he’ll let us in. You never know.

Marv: Yeah, he’s a kid. Kids are stupid.

Kevin: [sitting down to eat his mac and cheese] Bless this nutritious microwaveable macaroni and cheese dinner and the people who sold it on sale. Amen.

[Suddenly, the clock chimes 9:00pm and Kevin blows out the candles and gets Buzz’s BB gun.]

Kevin: [cocks the gun] This is it. Don’t get scared now. [He stands by the kitchen door, hiding.]

Harry: [he and Marv are now at the kitchen door] Merry Christmas, little fella. We know that you’re in there, and that you’re all alone.

Marv: Yeah, come on, kid. Open up. It’s Santy Claus and his elf.

[Kevin sticks the barrel of the rifle through the dog door]

Harry: We’re not gonna hurt you.

Marv: No, no. Got some nice presents for ya.

Harry: Be a good little fella now and open the door.

[Kevin pulls the trigger, shooting Harry in the groin; he screams in pain and falls to his knees as he mumbles under his breath]

Marv: What? What? What? What? What happened?

Harry: Get that little…

Kevin: [on the floor; aims the gun at Marv as he sticks his head through the dog flap] Hello.

[Marv gets shot in the head; screams in pain]

Kevin: Yes! Yes!

Marv: The little jerk is armed!

Harry: That’s it! That’s it! I’m goin’ in the front. You go down the basement!

[Harry tries to go up the stairs towards the front door but keeps slipping due to the fact that Kevin also wet them and the water froze; he makes it to the front door and grabs the knob which is red hot from the electric charcoal lighter Kevin placed there earlier, screams in agony and plunges his hand into the snow, to his relief. We see a monogrammed «M» in his hand.]

[Marv slips down the stairs due to the fact that Kevin had used the hose to wet them and the water turned to ice; He uses his crowbar to open the door and walks into the house through the basement. He pulls a light switch which causes the iron on the laundry chute to fall on his head leaving an imprint on his face. He them walks the basement steps which had been previously tarred by Kevin which his socks and shoes get stuck to and steps on a nail in a piece of tar paper. He tries to go back outside and slips]

Harry: That smart aleck. Oh, boy. That’s it, you little…You little… No, not this time, you little brat. You little creep, where are you?

[Harry gets his head blowtorched; screams in agony and then puts his head in the snow]

Kevin: Yes! Yes! Yes!

Harry: I’ll rip his head off!

You’re dead, kid.

[Kicks the door open]

Where are you, you little creep?!

Marv: Harry, I’m comin’ in.

Kevin: Oh, no! I’m really scared.

Harry: It’s too late for you, kid. We’re already in the house, we’re gonna get ya.

Kevin: [readies the fan, plastic wrap and pillow feathers] Okay, come and get me!

Harry: [comes in through the door to the dining room; walks into the plastic wrap with clear caulk on it] Why, you…!

[trips the wire triggering the fan to blow the feathers onto him] Now you’re dead!

Marv: [climbs in through the living room window and steps down barefoot onto the ornaments; screams in pain] I’m gonna kill that kid!

Harry: Marv!

Marv: Harry?

Harry: [seeing him barefoot] Why the hell’d you take your shoes off?

Marv: [seeing Harry with feathers all over him] Why the hell are you dressed like a chicken?

Kevin: I’m up here, you morons! Come and get me! [they slip on the toy cars Kevin put there]

Kevin: You guys give up, or are you thirsty for more?

Harry: Heads up!

[gets whacked by a paint can]

Don’t worry, Marv. I’ll get him for ya.

Marv: Harry! [gets whacked by a paint can]

Kevin: Yes!

Marv: He’s only a kid, Harry. We can take him.

Harry: Ah, shut up, will ya? What is it?

Marv: Ooh, you’re missin’ some teeth.

Harry: [feels inside his mouth] Where? It’s my gold tooth. My gold tooth. I’ll kill ‘im. I’ll kill ‘im! You bomb me with one more can, kid…and I’ll snap off your cojones and boil ’em in motor oil! [They run up the stairs; Kevin takes the opportunity to run into Kate and Peter’s bedroom to call the cops]

Dispatcher: 911 emergency.

Kevin: [disguising his voice] Help, my house is being robbed. My address is 656 Lincoln Boulevard. My name is Murphy.

Harry: You never know what’s up there. There he is!

[Harry trips over the wire]

Marv: [jumps over the wire and grabs Kevin by the ankle as he tries to run into the attic] I gotcha! I got him, Harry. I got him. Harry, get up! Give me a hand! I got him! Harry, help me! Get up! I got him.

[Kevin puts the tarantula on Marv’s face; he screams]

[Marv gets up and tries to kill the tarantula which has now landed on Harry’s chest with his crowbar]

Harry: What are you doin’, Marv?

Marv: Harry, don’t move.

Harry: Marv?

Marv: Don’t… move.

Harry: Marv, what are you doin’? Marv— [screams in agony from Marv hitting him with the crowbar to try and kill the tarantula]

Marv: Did I get him? Did I get him?! Where is it? Where is it?

Harry: [whacks Marv repeatedly with the crowbar] Never mind did you get it! Here! How do you like it? Huh?! You jerk! Get that kid! Go on. Get that kid!

[They run up into the attic after Kevin] Where’d he go?

Marv: Maybe he committed suicide.

Kevin: [in the tree house] Down here, you big horse’s ass! Come get me before I call the police!

Marv: Let’s get him! [tries to move, but Harry stops him]

Harry: Wait, wait. That’s just what he wants us to do—Us to go back downstairs through his fun house so we get all tore up.

Marv: He’s gonna call the cops!

Harry: He’s not callin’ the—From a tree house?! Come on.

Marv: Out the window?

Harry: Yeah.

Marv: I’m not goin’ out the window.

Harry: Why, you scared, Marv? Are you afraid? Come on, get out here. Come on. Come on! Keep goin’. Keep goin’.

Marv: Let’s go back, Harry.

Harry: Shut up. Shut it, Marv!

Kevin: [holding a pair of shears to the rope] Hey, guys! Check this out.

Harry: [as Kevin prepares to cut the rope] Go back! Go back.

[Kevin cuts the rope sending them crashing into the side of the house]

Harry: There he goes! There he is! Get out of the way, you dope!

Marv: There he is!

Kevin: Hey, I’m callin’ the cops. [Runs to the Murphy’s]

Harry: [to Marv] Wait, wait wait, wait. He wants us to follow him. I got a better idea. Come on. [They head him off]

[as Kevin wades through the flooded basement, he runs up the stairs only to be caught by the Wet Bandits]

Harry: Hiya, pal. We outsmarted ya this time. Get over here! [Hangs Kevin from the coat hook on the back of the door]

Marv: What are we gonna do to him, Harry?

Harry: [Marley sneaks up behind them while Harry says this] We’ll do exactly what he did to us. I’m gonna burn his head with a blowtorch.

Marv: Then we can smash his face with an iron!

Harry: I’d like to slap him right in the face with a paint can maybe.

Marv: Or shove a nail through his foot!

Harry: First I’m gonna bite off every one of these little fingers, one at a time.

[Marv laughs; Marley takes his shovel and whacks Marv. Harry turns around and gets whacked with the shovel.]

Marley: [Lifts Kevin off the hook] Come on. Let’s get you home.

(Old Man Marley carries Kevin back home. A few minutes later, the police arrive.)

Kevin: [watching from living room wondow] Wow! This is great.

Cop: Nice move. Always leaving the water running. Now we know each and every house that you’ve hit.

Cop 2: You know, we’ve been lookin’ for you guys for a long time.

Marv: Yeah. Now, remember, we’re the «Wet Bandits.» Wet Bandits, that’s W-E-T…

Harry: Shut up! Get in the car!

Cop: Hey, come on. Come on.

Harry [as he’s being put in the car] Hand off the head, pal!

Cop: Come on.

[Cops drive away. Harry looks back at Kevin; Kevin puts a plate of cookies and carrots on the table along with a glass of milk. He straightens a present under the tree]

[Cut to Gus and Co. driving towards Chicago in the Budget van to drop Kate off]

Kate: I’m a bad parent. I’m a bad parent.

Gus: No, you’re not. You’re beatin’ yourself up there. This happens. These things happen, y’know. You wanna talk about bad parents? Look at us. We’re on the road 48, 49 weeks outta the year. We hardly see our families. Joe, over there. Gosh, you know…he forgets his kids’ names half the time. Ziggy over there, he’s never even met his kid. Eddie… Let’s just hope none of them write a book about him.

Kate: Tell me, have you gone on vacation and left your child home?

Gus: No. But I did leave one at a funeral parlor once. Yeah, it was terrible too. I was all distraught and everything. The wife and I, we left the little tyke there in the funeral parlor. All day. All day. You know, when we went back at night, when we…came to our senses, there he was. Apparently, he was there all day with a corpse. Now, he was okay. You know, after six, seven weeks. He came around and started talkin’ again. They get over it. Kids are resilient like that.

Kate: Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this.

Gus: You brought it up, I was just tryna cheer you up.

Kate: I’m sorry I did.

Kevin: Mom? Mom?

Kate: Kevin? Kevin! Merry Christmas, sweetheart. Oh, Kevin, I’m so sorry.

Kevin: Where’s everybody else?

Kate: Oh, baby, they couldn’t come. They wanted to so much, but—

Buzz: [arguing with Linnie and Megan] I didn’t fall asleep in the back of the cab and drool all over you, did I?

You do drool, you split…

???: Guys, would you shut up!

Come on, you guys, it’s Christmas.

Peter: Kevin! Kevin, my boy. How are you?

Kevin: Oh, it’s good to see you.

Peter: You’re all right. I love you. You okay?

Kevin: Yeah.

Buzz: Hey, Kev. It’s pretty cool that you didn’t burn the place down.

Kevin: Thanks, Buzz.

Kate: Wait a minute. How did you guys get home? Peter: We took the morning flight. Remember? The one you didn’t wanna wait for.

Kate: Oh, no. Oh! Thank you. Merry Christmas.

Peter: Merry Christmas.

Kate: Someone has to find an open store. We don’t even have milk here.

Kevin: I went shopping yesterday.

Jeff: You, shopping?

Kevin: I got some milk, eggs, and fabric softener.

Peter: What? No kiddin’? What a funny guy. What else did you do while we were away?

Kevin: Just hung around.

Peter: You guys, come put your stuff upstairs.

Jeff: He went shopping? He doesn’t know how to tie his shoes, and he’s going shopping?

Peter: [finds Harry’s gold tooth on the floor; confusedly] Honey, what’s this?

[Kevin goes to the window to see Marley reunited with his son, granddaughter and daughter-in-law; Marley waves to him]

Buzz: [off] Kevin! What did you do to my room?! [Kevin runs off, shocked.]

[fade to black as credits roll]

It’s probably not hard to believe that Home Alone is one of the highest grossing comedies of all time. Decades after its release, it’s still a Christmas classic (and hotly contested top holiday watch). So this begs the question: when so many films lose their appeal after advances in technology and story-telling in general, how is it that Home Alone still holds up? Most if not all amazing films start with a brilliant script, and the Home Alone screenplay is no exception. Let’s delve into how this hero’s journey has stood the test of time.  

Click to view and download the entire The Lord of the Rings: Home Alone script PDF below.

Click above to read and download the entire Home Alone script PDF

Home Alone and Dan Harmon’s Story Circle

 McAllisters Return Home  •  Read Full Scene

Home Alone, 1990

The McAllisters pack for Paris  •  Read Full Scene

Kevin is Punished Scene  •  Read Full Scene

Спектакль «HOME ALONE. Один дома» на английском языке.

Цель постановки: формирование интереса к английскому языку у учащихся 5-9х классов, повышение ценности семейного образа жизни, сохранение духовно-нравственных традиций в семейных отношениях и семейном воспитании.

Действующие лица :

Кевин

Массовка 1девочка

Массовка 2мальчик

Массовка 3девочка

Массовка 4 девочка

Вор 1

Вор 2

Базз(брат Кевина)

Мама Кевина

Папа Кевина

Два полицейских

Сценарий

Автор: The story we want to tell you about began one winter evening on Christmas Eve. The McCallister family was going on their Christmas vacation. And like any family preparing for a trip during such a restless period, Kevin’s family was in such a mess. So, let’s take a look! История, о которой мы хотим вам рассказать началась одним зимним вечером в канун Рождества. Семья МакКалистеров собиралась в свой рождественский отпуск. И как любая семья, готовящаяся к путешествию в такой суматошный период, семья Маккалистеров была в полном переполохе. Что ж, давайте посмотрим!

СЦЕНА 1.

Звонит телефон, а на сцене полный переполох сбоку стоит стол и стулья на столе стаканчики пустые и лежат паспорта, все бегают туда-сюда и кричат свои реплики. Вор, переодетый в полицейского, стоит посреди сцены и пытается остановить каждого пробегающего, говоря свою реплику, но все проходят мимо него.

Массовка 1: Answer the phone. — Подойдите к телефону.

Массовка 2: Where’s my suitcase? — Где мой чемодан?

Массовка 3: I’m going downstairs. — Я иду вниз по лестнице.

Массовка 4: — Who stole my hair dryer? — Кто украл мой фен?

Вор: Excuse me. Girls. Извините. Девочки.

Массовка 1: — Take the witches! — Забери этих ведьм!

Вор: Excuse me.-Извините.

Массовка 2: Come help me make up these beds in the living room! -Ну помогите же мне заправить кровати в гостиной!

Массовка 3: Tracy, did you order the pizza? — Трейси, ты заказала пиццу?

Массовка 1: Buzz did. — Базз заказал.

Вор: Excuse me. Ma’am, ma’am! — Извините.Мадам, Мадам!

Вор пытается подойти к каждому, но к кому бы он не подошел, те убегают в спешке за кулисы.

Уходит и вор.

Сцена 2

Мать Кевина разговаривает по телефону заходит Кевин:

Кевин: — Mom! Uncle Frank won’t let me watch the movie, why can’t I? Дядя Фрэнк не разрешает мне смотреть фильм, почему мне нельзя?

Мать: Kevin, I’m on the phone. — Кевин, я говорю по телефону

Кевин: BUT MOM – Но мам!

Мать (повышая голос): Kevin, out of the room. Кевин, выйди из комнаты.

Кевин (повышая голос): Hang up the phone and listen to me, why don’t ya? — Почему бы тебе не положить трубку, и не выслушать меня, а?

Мать(вздыхая): Oh, this kid. – Ох уж этот ребенок

Мать уходит Кевин остается один

Кевин (поворачиваясь к зрителям): Nobody needs me here. Я не нужен никому тут. This house is so full of people, it makes me sick! — В этом доме слишком много людей, меня тошнит от этого!

When I grow up and get married, I’m living alone! Когда я вырасту и женюсь, я буду жить один!

Крича: Did you hear me? Вы меня слышали?

I‘m living alone! Я буду жить один!

I‘m living alone!

Уходит Кевин

Сцена 3

Сцена Вор и двое детей (массовка1 и массовка 2). Вор задает вопросы дети переглядываются в шоке и ничего не отвечают.

Вор: How you kids doing, huh? — Как поживаете детишки, а?

-Good? Хорошо?

-Lot of action around here today, huh? Сегодня все вокруг куда-то торопятся, да?

-Going on vacation? Собираетесь (отдохнуть) на каникулы?

-Where you going? Куда едете?

-Do you hear me or what? Вы меня слышите или как?

Выходит отец

Вор: Hey, listen, uh … — Эй, послушайте, ах … замолкает, видя отца

Отец:Hi.- Здравствуйте.

Вор: Hi. — Здравствуйте. (пожимают руки)

Вор: Are you Mr. McCallister? — Вы мистер МакКалистер?

Отец: Yeah. — Да

Вор: The Mr. McCallister who lives here? — Тот самый мистер МакКалистер, что живёт здесь?

Отец: Yes. — Да

Вор: Oh, good, I’d like to talk with you, sir. О, хорошо, Мне хотелось бы с вами поговорить, сэр.

Отец: Am I under arrest or something? — Я арестован или что-то случилось?

Вор: No, no. It’s Christmas time. Сейчас Рождество.There’s always a lot of burglaries around the holidays. В праздники всегда много краж. So, we’re checking the neighborhood to see if everyone’s taking the proper precautions. It‘s all. Поэтому, мы проверяем окрестности, чтобы убедиться, все ли соблюдают меры предосторожности. Вот и всё.

Отец: Oh, yeah. — О, понятно. Well, we have automatic alarm system. У нас установлена сигнализация.

Вор(улыбаясь): You are well prepared. So goodbye, sir. Вы хорошо подготовлены! До свидания.

Уходит вор, Мать Кевина заносит пиццу, ставит ее на стол.

Мать Кевина— Pizza, pizza, pizza is here. — Пицца! Пицца здесь.

Все из массовки плюс мать и отец Кевина выходят садятся за стол. Выходят Кевин и Базз. Базз подходит к столу и берет кусочек пиццы.

Кевин: Did anyone order me a plain cheese? — Кто-нибудь заказал мне обычную пиццу с сыром?

Базз(надменно): Oh, yeah, we did. О, да, заказали. But if you want any. Somebody’s gonna have to barf it all up, cause it’s gone. Но если ты захочешь…, то кому-то придётся её срыгнуть, потому что она кончилась. Базз начинает делать вид что его тошнит и кричит: Kev! Kevin… get a plate. Кевин… тащи тарелку. Кевин вне себя от злости толкает Базза и тот сносит стол. Все вскакивают!

Отец Кевина кричит: The passports! Watch it! Паспорта! Осторожно!

Отец Кевина Поднимает паспорта, и все уходят кроме Кевина и мамы

Сцена 4

Мама Кевина ругает его

Мама: What is the matter with you? – Что с тобой такое?

Кевин: He started it! He ate my pizza on purpose. He knows I hate sausage and olives. — Он все это начал, он специально съел мою пиццу. Он знает, что я ненавижу пиццу с сосисками и оливками.

Мама: Look what you did! Get upstairs now. — Посмотри, что ты наделал. Поднимайся наверх, сейчас же.

Кевин: Why? — Но почему?

Мама: Kevin, upstairs! Say good night, Kevin. —Быстро наверх! Скажи спокойной ночи, Кевин.

Кевин:«Good night, Kevin.» – Спокойной ночи, Кевин.

Мама: There are a lot of children, and only you have to make trouble. Now get upstairs. — Здесь так много детей и только ты один устраиваешь неприятности.

Кевин (грустно): The third floor? It’s scary up there. I‘m sorry. – Подниматься на третий этаж? Там страшно. Извини, мам.

Мама: It’s too late. Get upstairs. – Уже слишком поздно для извинений. Поднимайся.

Кевин (крича): Everyone in this family hates me! – Все в этой семье ненавидят меня!

Мама (на повышенных тонах): Then ask Santa for a new family. – Тогда попроси у Санты новую семью.

Кевин: I don’t want a new family. I don‘t want any family. – Я не хочу новую семью. Я не хочу никакую семью вообще.

Мама: Stay up there. I don’t want to see you again tonight. — Оставайся наверху. Я больше не хочу видеть тебя сегодня.

Kевин: I don’t want to see you for the rest of my life. I don’t want to see anybody else either. — А я не хочу видеть тебя до конца своих дней! Я вообще больше не хочу видеть никого из вас.

Мама: I hope you don‘t mean that. You’d feel pretty sad if you woke up and didn’t have a family. – Я надеюсь, ты говоришь это не на полном серьезе. Тебе будет очень грустно, если ты проснешься и у тебя больше не будет семьи.

Kевин: No, I wouldn’t. – Нет, не будет.

Mама: Then say it again. Maybe it‘ll happen. – Тогда скажи об этом еще раз. Может быть, это и произойдет.

Kевин: I hope I never see any of you again! I wish they would all just disappear. – Я надеюсь я больше никогда не увижу никого из вас снова. Как бы мне хотелось, чтобы они все исчезли.

Кевин убегает и мать уходит за кулисы. Утро поют птички, Кевин выходит и потягивается, Зевает.

Kевин: Mom? Dad? Where are you guys? I made my family disappear. (x2). I‘m free!!! – Мам? Пап? Вы где? Я сделал так чтобы моя семья исчезла. Я СВОБОДЕН!!!!

(Кевин прыгает от радости и убегает.)

Сцена 5

Играет Музыка в центре два стула мать и отец в аэропорту

Отец: What’s the matter? Honey? — Что случилось? — Милая?

Мама: I have a terrible feeling. — У меня ужасное предчувствие.

Отец: About what? — Насчёт чего?

Мать: That we didn’t do something. — Что мы что-то не сделали.

Отец: We took care of everything. Believe me, we did. Мы обо всем позаботились. Поверь мне, мы (всё) сделали.

Мать: Did I turn off the coffee? — Я выключила кофеварку?

Отец: No. I did. — Нет. Я выключил.

Мать: Did you lock the doors? — Ты закрыл двери?

Отец: Yeah. — Да.

Мать: What else could we be forgetting? — Что мы еще могли забыть?

Мать с отцом переглядываются….

Мать (криком ужаса, громко): Kevin! — Кевин!

Падает на отца будто в обморок, и они уходят и мать потихоньку во время всего остального действия поднимается на самый верх актового зала.

Сцена 6:

Кевин дома смотрится в зеркало и говорит сам с собой

— I took a shower, washing every body part with actual soap, I can‘t seem to find my toothbrush, so I‘ll pick one up, when I go out today. – Я принял душ, помыл каждую часть своего тела мылом, но я не могу найти свою щетку, поэтому я прикуплю одну, когда пойду на улицу сегодня.

Заходит за сцену

В это время выходят два вора

Вор 1: Hey, Harry? — Эй, Гарри?

Вор 2: Yeah? — Да?

Вор1: That house we were at last night, was that the McCallister’s? — Тот дом прошлой ночью, был дом МакКалистеров?

Вор 2: Yeah. — Да.

Вор1: Call me in Paris. — Перезвони мне в Париже.

Вор 2: You’re right. They‘re gone. — Ты прав. Они уехали.

Вор 1: I knew they were. — Я знал это.

Вор 2(потирая руки): Silver tuna tonight. — Золотая рыбка сегодня ночью

В этот момент из-за кулис выходит Кевин

Оба ВОРА: Hey, watch out! -Эй, стой!

Звучит тревожная музыка Кевин их замечает испуганно смотрит и убегает прочь.

Сцена 7

Bор 1: What’s the matter? – Что случилось?

Bор 2: I don’t like the way that kid looked at me. — Мне не понравилось, как этот мальчишка посмотрел на меня.

Bор 1: Ever seen him before? – Ты его уже видел до этого?

Bор 2: I saw a hundred kids this week. Let’s see what house he goes into. – Я видел сотни детей до этого. Давай посмотрим в какой дом он пошёл.

Bор 1: Why’s he going faster? He looked at me weird. Why would he run? – Почему он ускорился? Он смотрел на меня как на безумца.

Bор 2: Maybe he went in the church. – Может он пошел в церковь.

Bор 1: He lives here. He’s home alone. — Он живет здесь. Он один дома!

Bор 2: What? Do you want to come back tonight? – ЧТО? Ты намекаешь вернуться сюда ночью?

Bор 1: Ever since I saw that house, I wanted it. – Как только я увидел этот дом, я его захотел.

Bор 2: Let’s get out of here. — Давай, пошли.

Уходят за кулисы, Выходит Кевин и говорит, и уходит

Кевин(грустно): Oh mum, where are you? I’m so scared and alone отсюда говорит уверенно but when those guys come back, I’ll be ready. – Ох мам, где же ты? Я так напуган и одинок, но когда эти ребята вернутся, я буду готов!

 Сцена 8

Выходят воры, потирая руки

Bор 1 (смотрит на часы): Nine o’clock. — Девять часов

Bор 2: This way it’s dark then. Здесь уже темно в это время.

Bор 1: Kids are scared of the dark. – Детки боятся темноты.

Bор 2: You’re afraid of the dark too. You know you are. – Ты боишься темноты тоже.

Bор 1: No, I‘m not. – Вообще то нет.

СТОЯТ У ОДНОГО ВХОДА НА СЦЕНУ И ГОВОРЯТ

Bор 2: Сome on, kid. Open up. It’s Santy Claus and his elf. — Давай малыш, открывай. Это Санта и его эльф.

Bор 1: We’re not gonna hurt you. — Мы тебе не навредим.

Bор 2: No, no. We’ve got some nice presents for you. Be a good little fella now and open the door. — Нет, нет. У нас есть для тебя подарочки. Будь хорошим парнишкой и открой дверь.

Кевин выбегает и кидает в них подушками они корчатся от боли Кевин прячется

Bор 1: This stupid boy is armed! — Этот глупый мальчишка вооружён.

Bор 2: That’s it! I’m going in the front. You go down the basement! —Да уж. Я иду ко входу, ты идешь в подвал.

Bор 1: You little creep, where are you? – Эй, мелкий слизняк, где ты?

Заходят за кулисы в этот момент из кулис выбегает Кевин кладет на пол веревку делает «тщщщ» зрителям и убегает

Воры выходят спинами друг к другу и запинаются об веревку, падают на сцену. Кричат.

Bор 2: You’re dead, kid. —Ты покойник!

Bор 1: It’s too late for you, kid, we’re in the house. We‘re gonna get you. – Слишком поздно, малыш, мы уже в доме. Мы тебя достанем.

Kевин: Okay, come and get me! — Хорошо, идите и поймайте меня. (Кевин кричит из-за кулис, воры подрываются бегут за кулисы)

Кевин выбегает из-за кулис разбрасывает игрушки, УБЕГАЕТ ЗА КУЛИСЫ, воры выходят, поскальзываются об игрушки, падают. Орут, не вставая

Bор 1: Now you’re dead! — Ты мертвец!

Bор 2: I’m gonna kill that kid! — Я убью этого ребенка.

Кевин кричит из-за кулис:

Kевин: You guys give up, or are you thirsty for more? Heads up! – Ребята, вы что сдались? Или вы жаждете большего?

(Кевин кидает на них еще не вставших сумку) Они кричат, у второго вора выпадает что-то золотое.

Bор 1: He’s only a kid, Harry. We can take him. What is it? You‘re missing some teeth. — Он же просто ребёнок, Гарри. Мы его схватим. Что это? Это твои зубы?

Bор 2: Where? Оглядывается, поднимая свой зуб. It‘s my gold tooth. My gold tooths. I’ll kill him. I‘ll kill him! — Где? Это мой золотой зуб! Мой золотой зуб! Я его убью! Я его прикончу!

Воры забегают за сцену

Кевин выходит с телефоном и звонит в полицию.

Kевин: Hello, police, my house is being robbed. My address is 656 Lincoln Boulevard. My name is Murphy. — Здравствуйте, полиция, мой дом ограблен. Мой адрес 656 проспект Линкольна. Моё имя Мёрфи.

Звучат сирены полиции, выходят два полицейских и один говорит.

Полицейский 1: We’ve been looking for you guys for a long time. — Мы искали вас долгое время ребятки.

Bор 1: Yeah. Well, remember, we’re the «Wet Bandits.»- Запомните, мы «Мокрые Бандиты»

Bор 2: We’ll come back! — Мы ещё вернемся.

Kевин: Goodbuy, guys. – Пока ребята

Все уходят кроме Кевина, Кевин садится на сцену начиная плакать, вдруг из зала выбегает мама и кричит.

Mама: Kevin! Kevin! – Кевин! Кевин!

Keвин: Mom? Мама?

Mама: Merry Christmas, sweetheart. Oh, Kevin, I’m so sorry. Счастливого рождества, любимый. Ох, Кевин мне так жаль.

Keвин: It’s Okey, Mom. Merry Christmas! I’m so happy you are home. — Все нормально мам, с Рождеством. Я так счастлив, что ты дома!

ОБНИМАЮТСЯ ОСТАЛЬНЫЕ ВЫХОДЯТ НА ПОКЛОН, ФИНАЛЬНАЯ ПЕСНЯ.