Is “Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animal!” from a real movie?

THE BIG PICTURE

Home Alone is a beloved holiday classic with hilarious moments that never fail to make you smile.
The fictional gangster movie within Home Alone , Angels With Filthy Souls , is an iconic part of the film’s story.
Angels With Filthy Souls is not a real movie, but its inspiration comes from the 1938 film Angels With Dirty Faces.

The 1990s gave us great Christmas films that became one of the best movies to watch during the Holidays like Jingle All The Way and The Nightmare Before Christmas. But few films claim the naivety and good nature of the Home Alone duo: Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost In New York.

Home Alone is a holiday classic filled with endless hilarious moments that, no matter how many times you watch it, still make you smile.

Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) Vs the Wet Bandits, Marv (Daniel Stern), and Harry (Joe Pesci) is always a good combo of diabolical deviants and a surefire way to get some good mischief thrown into the mix, especially when Kevin tricks the bandits with his old-timey gangster movie Angels With Filthy Souls.

But did you know that Angels with Filthy Souls and its sequel, Angels With Even Filthier Souls, isn’t a real movie?

Home Alone

An eight-year-old troublemaker, mistakenly left home alone, must defend his home against a pair of burglars on Christmas eve

Release DateNovember 16, 1990
DirectorChris Columbus
CastMacaulay Culkin , Joe Pesci , Daniel Stern , John Heard , Roberts Blossom , Catherine O’Hara
WritersJohn Hughes

What Happens in ‘Angels With Filthy Souls?’

In both the first and the second noirish gangster mini-film, Johnny (Ralph Foody) is most memorable as a classic mobster about to blow someone away with his machine gun — which only makes sense. Angels with Filthy Souls surrounds a dialogue between Johnny and a fellow mobster named, Snakes (Michael Guido).

Snakes comes to Johnny’s office to drop off “the stuff” and collect money for his boss, Acey. Johnny tells him Acey “ain’t in charge no more” and Johnny isn’t about to pay him anything. That’s when he gets his Tommy Gun and tells Snakes to get out of there before he counts to 10.

But Johnny skips a couple of numbers, counting “1,2 -10,” and lets loose! After a blazing fury and several minutes of maniacal laughter, Johnny slurs the iconic line: “Keep the change, you filthy animal.”

Then, in Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, we get to see Johnny again in the sequel, Angels With Even Filthier Souls.

This time he’s sitting by the fire when his girlfriend enters the room, prompting Johnny to say, “I knew it was you; I could smell ya gettin’ off the elevator,” before accusing her of sleeping around with everyone, including Snuffy, Al, Leo, “Little Moe with the gimpy leg,” Cheeks, Bony Bob, and Cliff.

She denies everything, and Johnny says he believes her, but his Tommy Gun doesn’t. So, he shoots! After the smoke clears, we get one of the most recognizable holiday quotes of all time: “Merry Christmas, Ya filthy animal. And a happy new year.”

Everyone has their opinions about how good the movies are, but has anyone stopped to ask which movies have the best traps?

Johnny is pivotal to the Home Alone Movies and always ends up saving Kevin’s behind from trouble. In the first movie, yes, he scares the delivery kid, but Kevin also uses the film to scare, the iconic villain duo, the Wet Bandits as they’re scouting the McCallister house for a heist.

In Home Alone 2, Kevin gets some good use out of Angels With Even Filthier Souls when he’s in the Plaza Hotel and the staff confronts him about where his father is and where he got the funds to pay for his stay.

Mr. Hector (Tim Curry), Cedric (Rob Schneider), and a few others barrel into the room just in time to hear Johnny accusing his girlfriend of sleeping around.

What’s better is that one of the names, Cliff is also that of the security guard, causing the hotel crew to turn to him in utter shock. That’s when Jonny pulls out the Tommy Gun, and chaos ensues while Kevin escapes.

What Film Was ‘Angels With Filthy Souls’ Based On?

Johnny the gritty gangster has some of the best lines in the movie and makes us wish it was an actual film. Unfortunately, it was made specifically for the Culkin chapter of the Home Alone movies.

Thankfully they were based on another gangster movie, Angels With Dirty Faces, starring James Cagney,Humphrey Bogart, Pat O’Brien, , Ann Sheridan, and George Bancroft. It presents a nuanced view of what makes a bad man tick.

They discuss whether he’s just an evil man or if society is to blame. Initially, the roles of Johnny and Snakes were reversed.

Foody was set to play Snakes, while Guido was cast as Johnny. But they had to switch because Foody had just had a knee replacement and couldn’t bend on his knee. Neither actor was bent out of shape over it, however, as both roles were fun.

Surprisingly, the short film only took one day to shoot and was shot on the final test day before any of the principal photography of Home Alone began. 

It was filmed in an abandoned high school gymnasium, which was perfect as the set had a couple of walls and was set up for maximum backlighting potential, as was the case for so many black-and-white noir films.

It was pumped with extra mist from a fog machine for extra ambiance to fit into Johnny’s office’s private detective-style decor.

The set was decorated with anything and everything in a private investigator’s arsenal, including an old typewriter, binoculars sitting on the window behind him for sleuthing, and a grabaphone, which was a style of cradle telephone partly made popular through its appearance in silent films. The most fantastic set decor item had to be the Tommy Gun Johnny used.

It was a Colt 1921AC Thompson submachine gun that Cagney used in the mobster film G Men in 1935.