"Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You". AllMusic. Retrieved February 25, 2009.
In an interview on March 14, 2012, the film's screenwriter, Dale Launer, talked about a sequel he had written involving Vinny Gambini practicing law in England. Marisa Tomei dropped out. The studio hired another screenwriter to rework the script without Tomei's character. Eventually, the project was shelved.
Driving through Alabama in their metallic mint-green 1964 Buick Skylark convertible, Bill Gambini and Stan Rothenstein, college students from New York who just got scholarships to UCLA, shop at a Sac-O-Suds convenience store and accidentally shoplift a can of tuna.
Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2019 decision stated, "In 1992, Vincent Gambini taught a master class in cross-examination.", and further extensively quoted from a cross-examination scene in the film.
Vinny Gambini was not a real lawyer, but he was a master of cross-examination. Gambini, of "My Cousin Vinny" fame, impeached a key witness during a criminal trial. If you don't know the scene, you missed out on one of the finer points of trial work. It's not always what you know about the law that wins.
Vinny was a new lawyer and had no courtroom experience. This was a huge case for the small town county court that doesn't likely see a lot of murder cases. The judge quizzed Vinny on his trial history to confirm that he was experienced enough to take the case, particularly as he had passed the bar in a different state.
Bill's mother reminds him there is an attorney in the family: his cousin Vinny Gambini. Vinny travels to Alabama, accompanied by his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito. Although willing to take the case, Vinny is a personal injury lawyer from Brooklyn, newly admitted to the bar and with no trial experience.
NF: Vinny failed the bar exam five times before finally getting it right on his sixth attempt. What does does the film say about the difficulty of the bar exam? DL: Actually, I'm going to have to tell you.
Vinny getting thrown in jail for contempt of court. Vinny and Lisa's repeated inability to get a good night's sleep, due to the train running through town or the factory whistles or the pigs being readied for slaughter.
actor Austin PendletonMr. Zimmerman said actor Austin Pendleton, who has a stutter and portrays the attorney, "must have been hard up for the money" to accept the role.
CambridgeThe director of Vinny, Jonathan Lynn, graduated with a law degree from Cambridge and made sure that every courtroom scene was technically accurate. Everything in the movie occurring during the trial could happen and often does happen.
49Joe Pesci was 49, while Marisa Tomei was 27 when this movie was released.
It turns out this town isn't in Alabama at all, but is rather the downtown of Monticello, Georgia. Many of the real-life businesses in the downtown area can be seen in the movie as well.
For his trouble, he gets fined in contempt and sent to jail with a bail of two hundred dollars. It's up to Mona Lisa to get him out. Seems the two came all the way to Alabama without a dollar to their name, because the only way to raise the money is to go to the local pool hall and hustle a guy.
In the film, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern play robbers Harry and Marv. Goodfellas and Casino actor Pesci, not used to starring alongside children, devised a plan in order to evoke fear in Culkin: he intentionally avoided the child star, who was 10 at the time, in between takes.
79Â years (February 9, 1943)Joe Pesci / Age
The idea for the album originated from Pesci's character Vincent LaGuardia Gambini, from his 1992 movie My Cousin Vinny. In the movie, Pesci starred as Vinny, an inexperienced lawyer who comes to the rescue of his wrongly accused cousin Billy Gambini, played by Ralph Macchio .
Critic Michael Gallucci of Allmusic gave the album a negative review and a rating of 1 star out of a possible five. Gallucci writes that apart from a few jazzy numbers drawing successfully on Pesci's experience as a lounge singer, the album is "a mound of failed songs and lame jokes."
The film deals with two young New Yorkers traveling through rural Alabama who are arrested and put on trial for a murder they did not commit and the comical attempts of a cousin, Vinny Gambini, a lawyer who had only recently passed the bar exam after several unsuccessful attempts, to defend them.
Pesci later reprised the Vinny Gambini character for his 1998 album Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You, which contains the song "Yo, Cousin Vinny ". The album cover portrays Pesci in a red suit similar to the usher suit he wore in the film.
The film received generally positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 86%, based on 56 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "The deft comic interplay between Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei helps to elevate My Cousin Vinny 's predictable script, and the result is a sharp, hilarious courtroom comedy." On Metacritic the film has a score of 68 out of 100 based on reviews from 23 critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.
With a budget of $11 million, My Cousin Vinny was more successful than anticipated, grossing $52,929,168 domestically and $11,159,384 internationally, bringing its overall worldwide total to $64,088,552.
Director Jonathan Lynn has a law degree from Cambridge University, and lawyers have praised the accuracy of My Cousin Vinny ' s depiction of courtroom procedure and trial strategy, with one stating that " [t]he movie is close to reality even in its details. Part of why the film has such staying power among lawyers is because, unlike, say, A Few Good Men, everything that happens in the movie could happen—and often does happen—at trial". One legal textbook discusses the film in detail as an "entertaining [and] extremely helpful introduction to the art of presenting expert witnesses at trial for both beginning experts and litigators"; furthermore, criminal defenders, law professors, and other lawyers use the film to demonstrate rules of evidence, voir dire, relevance, and cross examination.
Principal location of filming was Monticello, Georgia. My Cousin Vinny was a critical and financial success, with Pesci, Gwynne, and Tomei all praised for their performances. Tomei won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Attorneys have also lauded the film for its accurate depiction of court procedure and trial strategy.
Driving through Alabama in their metallic, mint-green 1964 Buick Skylark convertible, Bill Gambini and Stan Rothenstein, college students from New York who just got scholarships to UCLA, shop at a Sac-O-Suds convenience store and accidentally shoplift a can of tuna. After they leave, the store clerk is robbed and killed, and Bill and Stan are arrested for the murder. Due to circumstantial evidence and a confession to the shoplifting that is misconstrued as one to the shooting, Bill is charged with first-degree murder, and Stan as an accessory. Bill's mother reminds him there is an attorney in the family: his cousin Vinny Gambini. Vinny travels there, accompanied by his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito. Although willing to take the case, Vinny is a personal injury lawyer from Brooklyn, newly admitted to the bar and with no trial experience.
Robert De Niro was Launer’s first choice to play Vinny Gambini. Grant Lamos IV/Getty Images for the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. After the script was written, a casting meeting was called and Launer met with Fox’s president, vice president, and CEO.
The screenwriter was very unhappy about the omission because it made Vinny seem “not so bright. You don’t know why it took him so long to get through the bar. And then suddenly he starts acting smart. What you have to do is make assumptions that he is actually a smart guy, and the law is just complicated and boring.
You can visit many locations from My Cousin Vinny. Though the film is set in Alabama, the production actually shot in three separate small towns in Georgia. “Apart from the courtroom,” which was a set, “virtually everything was shot on location,” director Jonathan Lynn said in Vinny ’s DVD commentary.
5. Joe Pesci based Vinny on guys from his neighborhood. “There’s a lot of people around like that in smaller neighborhoods, so I put a few of them together and [came] up with Vinny,” Pesci, who grew up in New Jersey, told The Movie Show in 1992. 6. The studio initially wanted to cut Mona Lisa Vito from My Cousin Vinny.
16. Joe Pesci learned how to do a card trick for My Cousin Vinny. In the scene where Vinny is convincing Bill to let him represent him, Vinny does a card trick. “It was important to me that the card trick wasn’t faked,” Lynn said in DVD commentary.
“The prisoners were all extremely cooperative and did exactly what we asked,” Lynn said in DVD commentary. “I don’t know what incentives or threats were made in order to achieve that.”
“I didn’t know if she was going into labor or what.” Tomei would go on to win the Oscar— and yes, despite the urban legend that 74-year-old presenter Jack Palance announced the wrong name , the actress really did win.