In the first several iterations of Home Alone‘s script, the film still ended with Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) being reunited with his mother (Catherine O’Hara) and the rest of the family. But the last we saw of him is when his father (John Heard) asks what he did while they were gone. “Oh, just hung around,” Kevin smirks. One can practically imagine the freeze frame pause on his smile and hear Yello purring, “Ooooh yeeaah,” from the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off soundtrack.
(To be fair, other versions of the script included one more scene that would have appeared as a mid-credits sequence with Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern’s Harry and Marv sitting in jail on Christmas Day, watching TV in the day room when they recognize dialogue from a little movie called Angels with Filthy Souls. “I’ll tell you what I’m gonna give you, Snakes. I’m gonna give you…”)
This is more or less the movie audiences fell in love with in 1990 and have been watching from one generation to the next every Christmas since. However, there is a key and emotionally crucial bit missing: Old Man Marley being reunited with his granddaughter and estranged son on Christmas morning. That’s because it was never a Hughes invention; the idea came from the film’s director, Chris Columbus.
The filmmaker, who at the age of 31 had only helmed two movies prior to Home Alone, realized that as adorable as Kevin was, the movie would benefit from a more emotionally cathartic core. Which is to say it needed a little more Christmas magic. As Columbus told Business Insider for Home Alone’s 30th anniversary, “I think probably the biggest thing I brought was Old Man Marley in the church. Not the conversation, but I added the moment when Marley talked about not being able to see his granddaughter.”
In the original draft, Old Man Marley, the alleged South Bend Slayer, did make small talk in the House of Worship with Kevin on Christmas Eve. Functionally, it provided another example of Kevin facing his fear and realizing folks are not what they appear. It also set up Hughes’ idea of having Marley save Kevin’s life with a shovel. Although as first scripted, the old-timer simply smashes Harry and Marv’s faces in and then winks, “A little trick I learned in South Bend.”
That could’ve been the last we saw of Marley, which in typical Hughes fashion leaves open to interpretation whether he might really have been the Shovel Slayer. Ergo, it was Columbus’ idea to reveal the lonely old man misses a son he quarreled with, and a granddaughter he never knew.
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.