If you find yourself watching Home Alone this holiday season and thinking to yourself, I wonder if they have ‘Angels With Filthy Souls’ on Disney+?, then you’re going to want to sit down for this one, ya filthy animals.
A few Christmases back, actor Seth Rogan took to Twitter to share a shocking discovery: "My entire childhood, I thought the old timey movie that Kevin watches in Home Alone (Angels With Filthy Souls) was actually an old movie."
Almost three decades after Home Alone’s release, the revelation left many fans reeling.
Even Macaulay Culkin himself admitted he didn't realize the truth as a kid.
Alas, it’s true: Angels with Filthy Souls is not a real movie.
While the violent black-and-white gangster film Kevin McCallister watches as he tries to tempt his missing family out of hiding (“Guys, I'm eating junk and watching rubbish! You better come out and stop me!”) proves to be pretty useful when it comes to foiling inept burglars and scaring the bejesus out of hapless pizza boys, you won’t find the flick on any streaming services.
The one-minute-and-20-second clip was written and filmed exclusively for Home Alone, and, according to Vanity Fair, it was shot in just one day on a soundstage inside an abandoned high school gymnasium.
The title does reference a real gangster film from 1938 starring James Cagney, though, called Angels with Dirty Faces. "I believe the title was decided upon only because we needed to create a label for the tape Kevin puts in the VHS player," art director Dan Webster told Vanity Fair.
For the faux movie, the role of gangster Johnny was played by actor Ralph Foody, while Snakes was played by Michael Guido. According to Vanity Fair, the roles were originally reversed, but Foody had recently had knee replacement surgery and couldn’t physically perform Snakes' dramatic death.
"That was perfectly fine with me since they were both fun roles," Guido told Vanity Fair. "But a few years later I realized that I was just about the only actor from the original film who was not invited to be in the sequel because my character was 'dead.' Oh well."
While Foody died in 1999, he did return for the sequel-within-a-sequel, Angels With Even Filthier Souls, for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
But if you’re feeling heartbroken and need more Angels in your life, Distractify notes that you can watch the full versions of each short film in the featurettes included on the Home Alone DVDs, along with commentary from director Chris Columbus — and you can spot a cameo from Johnny in Macaulay Culkin's 2018 Google Home ad, too.
Lauren (she/her) is the executive digital content director of the Hearst Lifestyle Group, where she oversees online content and strategy for Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day and other Hearst titles, including SEO, video, social media and e-commerce efforts. She has almost 20 years of experience writing and editing beauty, lifestyle, home, health, entertainment and product review content. She graduated from NYU with a degree in journalism and history.
