49 Fun Facts About My Cousin Vinny

In My Cousin Vinny, which word in Vinny's thick accent baffles Judge Haller?

Youths: Vinny's 'two yutes' has the judge asking what a yute is, an exchange the director says he wrote in after Joe Pesci said it to him at one of their first meetings.

After Vinny's one-line opening statement in My Cousin Vinny, what does Judge Haller leave on the record?

Only 'thank you': woken up to follow the prosecutor's speech, Vinny tells the jury that everything they just heard is nonsense, and the rest is struck out as argument.

Who plays Vinny's fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito, in My Cousin Vinny?

Marisa Tomei was a little-known name at the bottom of the screenwriter's own casting list, and the studio pressed for someone more famous.

Playing Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny won which award?

An Oscar for Best Supporting Actress; the win later bred a false rumour that presenter Jack Palance had read out the wrong name.

Which actor plays Judge Chamberlain Haller in My Cousin Vinny, his final film role?

Fred Gwynne plays Haller as a stickler rather than a villain: one leading critic praised his dour reactions and noted that the judge is a civilised man who isn't out to railroad anybody.

The actor who plays the judge in My Cousin Vinny was famous as which 1960s sitcom character?

Herman Munster's actor traded the monster make-up for a gavel: his judge is the film's straight man, threatening Vinny with two counts of contempt before a plea is even entered.

Which former teen star plays Bill Gambini, the cousin Vinny comes to Alabama to defend?

Ralph Macchio, still best known as the Karate Kid, shares top billing, though one leading critic complained that the film uses him as little more than a foil.

Who plays prosecutor Jim Trotter in My Cousin Vinny, later TV's Perry White?

Lane Smith's Trotter was modelled on a real prosecutor in Butler, Alabama, whose door screenwriter Dale Launer knocked on during a research trip through the South.

In My Cousin Vinny, Austin Pendleton plays public defender John Gibbons, whose courtroom problem is what?

A severe stutter, and one the actor knew at first hand: Pendleton had stuttered since childhood, almost turned the part down and says he came to regret taking it.

Which prop does Vinny use to discredit the elderly eyewitness Mrs. Riley in My Cousin Vinny?

A tape measure: he runs it out to half the distance she claimed and holds up two fingers; she counts four, then says she is thinking of getting thicker glasses.

My Cousin Vinny is set in Alabama, but in which state was it actually filmed?

Georgia: the director says Alabama had no film crews or equipment in place at the time, so he toured small Georgia towns and settled on the square in Monticello.

In My Cousin Vinny, how does Mona Lisa win the $200 that Vinny later has to collect from a local?

A game of pool: the loser, J.T., refuses to pay, so Vinny negotiates like a lawyer, weighing each threat of a beating as a counteroffer before agreeing to fight for the money.

In My Cousin Vinny, Vinny discredits a witness's timeline using the cooking time of which food?

Grits take twenty minutes, Vinny points out, so the witness cannot have cooked breakfast in the five he swore passed between the boys arriving and the gunshot.

In My Cousin Vinny, Mona Lisa's testimony proves the tire tracks were left by which car?

A 1963 Pontiac Tempest matched the boys' car in size, shape and even its mint-green paint, which is how three eyewitnesses came to identify the wrong vehicle.

In My Cousin Vinny, which two features does Mona Lisa say the getaway car had?

Independent rear suspension and Positraction: she reads both off one photograph, from two tyre marks of equal length that stay flat and even as the car mounts the kerb.

Which car are Bill and Stan driving when they are arrested in My Cousin Vinny?

A 1964 Buick Skylark convertible in faded metallic green; Vinny gets the FBI's analyst to concede that its tyres are the best-selling model and size in the country.

Why does Vinny have to change his courtroom alias from Jerry Gallo to Jerry Callo in My Cousin Vinny?

Gallo is dead, as the judge learns when he checks with New York; Vinny bluffs that his name is Callo with a C, and Lisa quietly has a judge back home vouch for the new one.

For what does Judge Haller repeatedly hold Vinny in contempt in My Cousin Vinny?

His clothes and conduct: Vinny turns up in black leather, answers 'I'm wearing clothes' when asked what he has on, and is jailed more than once before the lesson sinks in.

What legally correct process does Mona Lisa remind Vinny he can use to obtain the prosecution's evidence?

Discovery: Vinny thinks he has charmed the prosecutor out of his files until Lisa points out that the law obliges him to hand them over, calling it 'disclosure'.

Jonathan Lynn, the Cambridge law graduate who directed My Cousin Vinny, earlier wrote and directed which cult comedy?

Clue came first; on Vinny his law degree showed, and he says he made sure every legal point in the script was correct.

Joe Pesci won an Academy Award during the My Cousin Vinny shoot for his role in which film?

Goodfellas: his castmates gathered round a television to watch him win, and the screenwriter, sure of the result, had offered to bet him on it.

Which film topped the ABA Journal's 2008 list of the greatest legal movies, two places above My Cousin Vinny?

To Kill a Mockingbird came first and 12 Angry Men second; third place put a comedy about a novice lawyer ahead of Anatomy of a Murder and everything else on the list.

A federal judge wrote that My Cousin Vinny anticipated a Supreme Court ruling on which topic?

Expert-witness testimony: the 1999 ruling, Kumho Tire v. Carmichael, turned on a tyre expert's evidence, seven years after Mona Lisa took the stand to read tyre marks.

How does Mona Lisa handle the prosecutor's test question about a 1955 Chevrolet in My Cousin Vinny?

She spots the trick: no 1955 Bel Air had the engine he names, which she says arrived in 1962, and she then answers for the first year it was offered.

Which critic wrote that My Cousin Vinny was 'the kind of movie home video was invented for'?

Roger Ebert meant it as faint praise, advising readers to skip the cinema and rent it; the film took about $64 million worldwide, then found its biggest audience on video and cable.

Mona Lisa Vito knows cars from her family's garage, but what does she tell the court her own job is?

Out-of-work hairdresser: asked how that makes her a car expert, she says it doesn't, then lists the mechanics in her family, from her father and grandfathers to three brothers.

What is the murder victim's job in My Cousin Vinny?

Store clerk: he is robbed and shot at the Sack O' Suds minutes after serving the two students, who are pulled over and arrested soon afterwards.

Vinny's middle name in My Cousin Vinny is also the name of which New York airport?

LaGuardia: he gives his name in full as Vincent LaGuardia Gambini, and Joe Pesci reused all three names for his 1998 comedy album, Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You.

The actress who plays Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny was born in which New York borough?

Brooklyn, home of the film's Vinny too: the screenwriter first noticed her on stage in New York, acting with the Naked Angels theatre company she had helped to found.

In My Cousin Vinny, Bill confesses by mistake because he thinks he has been arrested for what?

Shoplifting a can of tuna: as Vinny tells the judge, his clients were caught completely by surprise, and that was the only crime Bill thought he was owning up to.

In 2009, Fox took legal action over an unauthorised remake of My Cousin Vinny made in which country?

India: Fox sued in the Bombay High Court over Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai, the two sides settled out of court, and the remake never reached cinemas.

After Vinny sits silent through the preliminary hearing in My Cousin Vinny, what does Stan do?

Fires him and hires another lawyer, then thinks again: after watching Vinny take the first eyewitness apart, Stan sacks the new man in open court and asks for Vinny back.

When he takes on the murder trial in My Cousin Vinny, what has Vinny never done before?

Tried a case in court: he has only just passed the bar, at the sixth attempt, and gets through the first hearings by bluffing the judge about a long record he doesn't have.

By his own account, which actor was screenwriter Dale Launer's first choice to play Vinny?

Robert De Niro: Launer recalls the studio president wincing that he was 'just not funny', years before De Niro's hit comedies Analyze This and Meet the Parents.

In My Cousin Vinny, what stood between eyewitness Ernie Crane and the crime scene?

A dirty window and trees: Vinny walks Crane through photographs of his own view, grime, a rusty screen, trees, leaves and bushes, one obstacle at a time.

The actor who plays the judge in My Cousin Vinny also played neighbour Jud Crandall in which Stephen King film?

Pet Sematary, three years earlier, cast him as the old neighbour who leads the father to the burial ground; the judge was his last film part before his death in 1993.

What does Mona Lisa do in My Cousin Vinny to show how her biological clock is ticking?

Stamps her foot; Vinny, who says he hasn't slept in five days, hits back by asking what else can be piled on top of this case.

Which country singer rewrote his song 'Bible Belt' so its lyrics reflected Vinny Gambini?

Travis Tritt first recorded 'Bible Belt' with Little Feat as a song about a straying assistant preacher, then rewrote its words around Vinny for the film.

Which Supreme Court justice cited My Cousin Vinny in a case about a client's right to choose his own lawyer?

Antonin Scalia raised it during a 2006 argument over a defendant's choice of counsel, and drew laughs from the bench by calling the film 'My Uncle Vinny'.

In My Cousin Vinny, Vinny has promised to marry Mona Lisa once what happens?

He wins his first case, a deal that has kept her waiting ten years, and even with the charges dropped the pair drive away still bickering over the wedding.

Before the murder trial in My Cousin Vinny, what kind of law has Vinny practised?

Personal injury, and it shows: spotting a local in a neck brace, he asks at once whether the man fell at his own place or somebody else's.

In My Cousin Vinny, which outing does Vinny join the prosecutor on, hoping to see his files?

A hunting trip: when Vinny asks whether his trousers will do, Lisa tells him to imagine being a deer shot while drinking at a stream and asks if it would care what the hunter was wearing.

Which comedian did the studio originally want to play Vinny?

Andrew Dice Clay was at the height of his fame and the studio was keen, but the producer says the idea didn't go far; the director wanted an Italian American in the part.

Dale Launer's shelved sequel script had Vinny practising law where?

England: in Launer's unmade sequel it is Lisa who is arrested, and Vinny has to defend her in a barrister's wig under rules he has never met.

Who plays Stan Rothenstein in My Cousin Vinny, later Barry on Friends?

Mitchell Whitfield's Stan is the born worrier of the pair: at their first meeting in the cell he takes his own lawyer for a predatory fellow inmate.

Which future Attorney General hailed Vinny's 'master class in cross-examination' in 2019?

He was then Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit and quoted a cross-examination scene at length in the opinion.

Which two actors were considered to play Bill and Stan in My Cousin Vinny?

Ben Stiller and Will Smith were both on the list, but the filmmakers felt that jailing a Jewish or a Black defendant in the Deep South would turn the comedy into a different story.

The courtroom scenes of My Cousin Vinny were shot on a Covington soundstage just vacated by which TV series?

In the Heat of the Night had just wrapped there, one of the cast recalls; the stage was a tin-roofed warehouse so loud in the rain that filming had to stop until it passed.

Screenwriter Dale Launer modelled Vinny's courtroom style on which comedian's way of handling hecklers?

Sam Kinison was known for demolishing hecklers, and Launer wanted a lawyer who took witnesses apart the same way, though he says only one witness ended up getting the full treatment.