Trivia for
Home Alone (1990) More at IMDbPro »

• John Candy filmed his part in only 1 day, albeit an extremely long 23-hour day. The story about having once forgotten his son at a funeral home was entirely improvised. His part is obviously inspired by the character he played in Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) also written by John Hughes
  
  
• The concept for this movie originated during the filming of a scene in Uncle Buck (1989) in which Macaulay Culkin plays a character who interrogates a would-be-babysitter through a letterbox.
  
  
• The movie that Kevin watches on video tape is not a real film, but footage especially created. It was called "Angels With Filthy Souls." Along with other similar era references in the movie, this is a play upon the movie Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) starring James Cagney.
  
  
• The role of Uncle Frank was written for Kelsey Grammer.
  
  
• Joe Pesci's character, Harry Lime, is named after Orson Welles's character from the film The Third Man (1949).
  
  
• Jeffrey Wiseman who plays the inquisitive neighbor, Mitch Murphy, auditioned for the role of Kevin McCallister.
  
  
• Entered into The Guinness Book of World Records as the "Highest Box Office Gross - Comedy", accumulating $533,000,000 internationally.
  
  
• The posters and DVD cases for the movie had Culkin with his hands on his face and screaming, based on the famous painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.
  
  
• Joe Pesci kept forgetting that he was filming a "family" movie during his characters on-screen outbursts so director Chris Columbus advised him to say "fridge" instead of the "F-word".
  
  
• Despite filming a family movie, Daniel Stern once slipped in the "s-word", which can be heard when he is retrieving his boot through the doggy door at 55:27 on the DVD.
  
  
• The car that ''Santa'' (the guy Kevin talks to about getting his family back) starts before it stalls out is a 1980 Honda Civic hatchback. It really did stall on camera as the actor was driving it away.
  
  
• The film that the family is watching while in the hotel in France is It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
  
  
• Although the part was written especially for Macaulay Culkin by John Hughes, several hundred other boys were auditioned by director Chris Columbus just because he wanted to confirm that Culkin was right for the part.
  
  
• The wax-and-plastic artificial snow used in this film was given to the Lyric Opera of Chicago when shooting finished. It has since been used in numerous opera productions.
  
  
• Robert De Niro turned down the role of Harry
  
  
• Little Nero's Pizza is an parody of Little Caesar's Pizza. "Caesar" was the title used by Roman emperors, such as Nero.
  
  
• The issue of Playboy that Kevin finds in Buzz's room is from July 1989 with Erika Eleniak as Miss July.
  
  
• In the scene where Harry bites Kevin's finger, Joe Pesci actually bit Macaulay Culkin, leaving a scar on his finger
  
  
• From 1993 to 1997, NBC aired 'Home Alone' during the 8/7c time slot on Thanksgiving evening as part of their holiday promotion.
  
  
• John Williams' score for the film is a song called "Somewhere In My Memory". It's used mainly as soundtrack for both Home Alone films, however he did a couple different recordings of the song itself. The full song done just with vocals is on the Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) music soundtrack with Bette Midler.
  
  
• Daniel Stern agreed to have the tarantula put on his face for exactly one take. He had to mime screaming because the noise would have scared the spider, and the scream was dubbed in later.
  
  
• The picture Kevin finds of "Buzz's girlfriend" was a picture of a boy made up to look like a girl because Chris Columbus thought it would be too cruel to make fun of a girl like that.
  
  
• There is a legend that Elvis Presley (who died in 1977) makes a cameo in this movie. Many of those who believe that Elvis is still alive maintain that, the heavily bearded man standing in the background of the scene where Mrs. MacCallister is shouting at the desk clerk (just before she meets John Candy) is Elvis.
  
  
• Chris Columbus had storyboarded a few scenes in which Kevin would have a dream where the house would come to life. One included the evil furnace in the basement which would chase him to the stairs and another which several toy nutcrackers would come to life along with the house. The scenes however would have been too expensive on such a tight budget and the ideas were dropped.
  
  
• Old Man Marley wasn't in the original screenplay.
  
  
• The "evil furnace" in the basement was done by two guys with fishing line and flashlights.
  
  
• According to Chris Columbus Kevin Nordine did all the effects for the film in his parent's basement in Chicago, by drawing all the effects onto the film. He also did the effects for only a few hundred dollars at a time.
  
  
• Several of Chris Columbus' family members make cameos in the film: His mother-in-law and his then infant daughter Eleanor Columbus are both passengers on the plane. His wife Monica Devereux-Columbus is a stewardess and his father-in-law plays the police officer who gives the line "tell them to count their kids again."
  
  

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