This Box Office Dud Is Actually John Candy's Best Movie (2024)

March 4th marked thirty years since John Candy left this world at just the age of 43. His death, which came after a heart attack while filming Wagon's East, was a shock to fans worldwide, but in his short career, Candy left a lasting legacy as one of our greatest comedic actors. From his time on SCTV, to his domination of the 1980s with movies like Spaceballs and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, John Candy was one of Hollywood's most beloved stars. In 1991, a year after his cameo in the monster hit Home Alone, Candy reunited with Chris Columbus and John Hughes for Only the Lonely. This time he was the lead, and although the film, which co-starred Maureen O'Hara and Ally Sheedy, was a box office dud, it showcased Candy in a new way. The laughs were still there, but Only the Lonely is also a heartbreaking drama that showcased how great of an actor he was. Had John Candy lived, Only the Lonely showed the path his career could have taken.

Only the Lonely

A Chicago cop must balance loyalty to his controlling mother and a relationship with a shy funeral home worker.

John Candy Was Already a Comedy Legend Before 'Only the Lonely'

With how much John Candy worked with John Hughes, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Candy was from Chicago. Instead, he was born in Toronto and found his initial fame on Second City Television (SCTV), Canada's version of Saturday Night Live, which also aired on NBC just like SNL. Before he was ever a movie star, he was already a known name in comedy. But then came his film career.

Candy had a minor role in The Blues Brothers, and had a bigger one the next year in Stripes, but it was the mid to late 80s when Candy really took off, first with Splash, then major comedies such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles, The Great Outdoors, and Uncle Buck, which were all either written or directed by John Hughes. In 1990, Candy was part of his biggest movie in a minor role for Home Alone, which was written by Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus. A year before, Macaulay Culkin had been the co-star to Candy in Uncle Buck, and now things were the other way around, although Culkin and Candy shared no scenes this time around, unfortunately. Candy had made his name as a bouncy, extroverted comedy icon, a man of a bigger stature who sometimes used his weight as a joke, but not to the level of a Chris Farley, who reveled in self-depreciation and physical humor. In 1991, Candy would get to explore another side of his personality and show that he was much more than a comedian, but a one-of-a-kind actor.

'Only the Lonely' Is a Remake of 1995’s 'Marty'

Home Alone was the biggest hit of 1990, making $285 million at the box office. After that, Hughes and Columbus decided to work together again, this time with Hughes as producer, and Columbus writing and directing their next project, a remake of 1955's Marty called Only the Lonely. The original film was a romantic comedy starring Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair, with Borgnine as the film's namesake, an awkward man in his mid-30s who still lives at home with his mother when he finally meets the love of his life. In the remake, Candy was cast in the Marty role as a character now named Danny Muldoon, a Chicago cop who lives with his overbearing, widowed mother, Rose (Maureen O'Hara), when he meets Theresa, played by Ally Sheedy, another John Hughes alum from The Breakfast Club. Culkin is also in Only the Lonely, albeit in a small role. Danny is sad and lonely, with his sense of humor still intact, and Theresa is extremely shy, making their love story one that is unconventional for a major studio movie, but also powerful in its realism.

Now, in 1991, John Candy and romantic comedy seemed like two things that didn't go together, but if you've ever seen the last act of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, then you knew Candy was capable of being a dramatic actor who could tug at your heartstrings. Candy, as Del Griffith, spends most of the film annoying the hell out of Steve Martin's cranky Neal Page. But when Neal walks into the train station at the end to find Del alone, who then confesses that he has no home to go to because the wife he's been talking about has been dead for years, well, you'd have to be soulless to not get emotional. In the dropped look on his face and just a few lines, you can feel Del's pain and love for his spouse, a pain and love so deep that it seems to spread to Candy himself.

Only the Lonely was a dud at the box office, making just $21 million, not even a tenth of what Home Alone did. It was meant to be a smaller film, however, not something wild and loud, but quieter and more intimate. That's not going to bring in families and kids, sadly. The film did okay in critical reviews, but critics like Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman called Candy's character "a big hearted butterball", saying that the movie wasn't realistic because someone who looked like John Candy couldn't get someone like Ally Sheedy. Candy was dismissed for his size, but as director Chris Columbus told Bobbie Wynant in an interview at the time, the best comedians, like Candy, Robin Williams, and Charlie Chaplin had a sense of serious humanity about them. He said he chose John because people relate to him. He wasn't a typical Hollywood leading man, but a middle-America actor who felt like a real person, because he was.

John Candy Showed His Dramatic Range as an Actor

In an interview with Good Morning America, Candy said that those bigger, more extroverted roles weren't really him, hinting that Danny Muldoon in Only the Lonely is closer to who he really is. Playing against expectations as a bigger man in a rom-com is similar to seeing James Gandolfini at the end of his life playing a quieter, unintimidating man in Enough Said with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a drastic departure from Tony Soprano. It's also what Chris Farley would have been like as Shrek, because before Mike Myers got the role, Farley had done most of the voice work, giving us a character who was still funny but also more lonely.

None of this is meant to stereotype bigger actors and comedians as guys who must be sad because they carry more weight. John Candy could have been lighter and still pulled off this performance through his facial expressions, body language, and the tone of his voice. It's the way he's shy with Ally Sheedy's Theresa, but also assured in his pursuit of her. Her awkwardness makes him more comfortable, rather than making him more over-the-top bumbling and goofy, as a way to show how nervous he is. Candy's best work in Only the Lonely is done with Maureen O'Hara, who came out of retirement just to make the movie and work with Candy. Her character, Rose Muldoon, is a mean, cold, demanding woman, but Candy's Danny lives with her out of guilt. She needs him, and he needs her, but a moment at the end shows just what Candy was capable of.

In one of the last scenes, Danny and Theresa break up, with Rose moving to Florida. Danny is supposed to go with her, but he can't, telling his mother that he needs to stay and fight to get Theresa back. Rose takes it badly, saying the worst things to her son in an attempt to hurt him, before quickly apologizing and reconciling. Without getting loud, wildly gesticulating, or going off on an extended monologue, Candy goes from confident, to angry, to sad, to happy all in less than three minutes. Only the Lonely digs in and gives us a raw and pained character. Comedy and drama can be on the same spectrum when both can be used to show how you respond to your insecurities. The self-deprecating humor is still there, but as a way to mask his pain. The gentle kindness is there as well, in a face that can drop and tear you apart, or give a small smile, like in the last freeze-frame of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and make you feel his joy. Three years after Only the Lonely, John Candy would be gone, and he is still missed.

Only the Lonely is available to watch on Starz in the U.S.

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