“Vinny” screenwriter Dale Launer isn’t a lawyer but did his homework. He interviewed cops from Yazoo County, Miss., and a deputy district attorney from Butler, Ala. on whom the movie’s competitive-but-collegial prosecutor was modeled.Read Jacob Gershman's full piece here.
A source of inspiration was a courtroom tale about Abraham Lincoln. Representing an accused murderer in 1858, Lincoln is said to have used an almanac to impeach the testimony of a witness claiming he saw his client kill a man under a full moon’s light.
According to Mr. Launer, the tale inspired the scene where Vinny uses his newfound knowledge about grits -- and how long it takes to cook them -- to spot a hole in the timeline of a key prosecution eyewitness.
“Are we to believe boiling water soaks faster into a grit in your kitchen than on any place on the face of the earth?” Vinny asks the man on the stand. “I don’t know,” he sheepishly responds.
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