How did she know? - My Cousin Vinny (1992) Discussion

[–] TwoMinutesToMidnight 11 years ago

The car identified by the witnesses matched the boys' car so that narrowed it down to the 60's. There is no mistaking 60's era cars for different decades.

I woke up in a great mood.... I don't know what the hell happened.

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[–] ExplorerDS6789 11 years ago

Taken right from Vinny himself earlier in the film: "she knows everything about cars."

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[–] mcgill_j 11 years ago

Well they identified the car.. And said there were only two.. The odds it was a car identical down to the model is less likely.

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[–] phantom6661313 10 years ago

I think she was basing it off of the fact that the car had to look like it could be easily mixed up with the kids' car. Thus, because the only car that looked like it was a '60s car, she talked about '60s cars.

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[–] stevenackerman69 10 years ago

She knew all about cars, remember?

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[–] mikeyg24 10 years ago

To be honest I think whatever kind of car the killers were driving is moot as long as it was similar enough to convince the eyewitnesses (who were none too bright anyway) that it was the same vehicle. Even if it was a similar looking car from the 70's or 80's or even if there were a thousand cars made in the 60's that resembled the boys car the point is that the car the boys were driving couldn't possibly have made the tire marks submitted to evidence. In fact that he needed to use Lisa at all instead of going straight to the FBI guy and teasing it directly out of him is a matter of opinion but again it's all dramatics.

There's a moral to this story Del Boy but for the life of me I can't find it!

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[–] 10 years ago

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[–] SunCanyonRoad 9 years ago

I had a 64 Buick Skylark convertible with posi-traction... but alas, it was a solid axle.

"I don't want your watch, man. I want your friendship!" - Lightfoot

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[–] lmdave 9 years ago

They nailed the year down because 1963 was the only year it had the transaxel, in 1964 they changed it. It was introduced in 63 and removed in 64, so it was the only year.

Did anyone notice that Vinny knew it was a 1963 pontiac tempest also before she even testified or figured it out...he knows some stuff then too. Because he wrote to the sheriff to go trace a 1963 Pontiac temptest before he got her back in the room, which later the sheriff played it off as a hunch, but even the Sheriff said he searched for a 1963 Pontiac Temptest, so even Vinny nailed the year down. But, Vinny knew that Mona would catch this also. So, it made for a great court scene, but couldn't Vinny have just revealed this information himself without needing her?

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[–] doowop14 9 years ago

Of course Vinny could have brought out the fact that the defendant's car couldn't possibly have made the tracks via recall of the prosecution's expert witness. However it really wouldn't have been one tenth as entertaining as Lisa's testimony from the witness chair.

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[–] 9 years ago

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[–] doowop14 9 years ago

You're forgetting that Mr. Wilbur was also an expert and was available as a recall witness. Formulating his questions properly, Vinny could just have easily extracted the same information from him. Remember, Vinny, also an expert, already knew the answers to the questions I just wouldn't have been nearly as funny.

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[–] 9 years ago

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[–] transmentalist 9 years ago

Someone on this forum pointed out earlier, the scene wasn't just about proving the car had been misidentified.

It was also Vinnie's way of apologizing to Lisa for dumping all over her at the diner.

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[–] elena-28 9 years ago

Did anyone notice that Vinny knew it was a 1963 pontiac tempest also before she even testified or figured it out...he knows some stuff then too.

Yes - I did catch that - you can see the revelation in his eyes before snaps into action.

The first time we watched this movie (when it first came out!), I asked my mechanically-inclined brother if the reasoning on this was right and if it was reasonable to think that someone could actually put this kind of two and two together. He said it definitely was, provided you had the kind of knowledge that these two have, and that you understood what you were looking at. That's why Vinny asks her the question the way he does - and why it probably wouldn't have worked the same way with Trotter's expert witness. (And of course, Vinny had to be very careful in how he led Mona Lisa so it wouldn't seem as if he *were* leading her)

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[–] MaximRecoil 9 years ago

They nailed the year down because 1963 was the only year it had the transaxel, in 1964 they changed it. It was introduced in 63 and removed in 64, so it was the only year.

No, all first-generation Tempests ('61 to '63) had the transaxle / independent rear suspension. She narrowed it down to the '63 because the '63 was the only one of those model years which was offered with an engine that she believed to have "enough power to make these marks" (the 326 V8, which had 352 ft. lbs. of torque; a big step up from the previous most powerful engine option: the 215 V8 with 235 ft. lbs. of torque):

Now, in the sixties, there were only two other cars made in America that had Positraction, and independent rear suspension, and enough power to make these marks. One, was the Corvette, which could never be confused with the Buick Skylark. The other had the same body length, height, width, weight, wheel base, and wheel track as the sixty-four Skylark, and that was the nineteen sixty-three Pontiac Tempest.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

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[–] JosephASpadaro 8 years ago

Did anyone notice that Vinny knew it was a 1963 Pontiac tempest also before she even testified or figured it out...he knows some stuff then too.

Yes, Vinny also worked as a mechanic (in a garage) for years. He stated that working in the garage all day and all night was what prevented him from getting a lot of courtroom experience.

So, it made for a great court scene, but couldn't Vinny have just revealed this information himself without needing her?

No, a lawyer is not allowed to testify at trial. If the lawyer wants some fact to be testified to, he must do so through some witness. (As, in this case, his girlfriend.)

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[–] doowop14 8 years ago

While Vinnie, as the defense counsel, may not have been able to take the stand himself, it would have been perfectly legitimate for him to pose direct questions to another witness, such as George Wilbur, leading him in the same direction as he did with Lisa. Vinnie could just ask him if he knew what Posi-Traction and/or independent rear suspension was and then directly ask if a car without either or both of those options could make the marks in the photograph. It would have been just as efficient cross examination but not nearly as entertaining on the screen.

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[–] JosephASpadaro 8 years ago

Yes, exactly.

True: Vinny himself cannot be a witness who testifies.

True: Vinny could have elicited from that FBI expert witness (through cross-examination) the very same testimony that he (eventually) got from his girlfriend.

True: Using the FBI expert witness would have made for a duller, more boring, less entertaining film. The girlfriend's testimony, in fact, was pretty much the highlight of the whole movie.

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[–] transmentalist 8 years ago

Vinny couldn't know for sure what Wilbur would say.

He and Lisa knew each other well enough that he could predict exactly what she'd say, even in response to Trotter's voir dire questions.

It's always safer to elicit the testimony you know

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[–] JosephASpadaro 8 years ago

Vinny couldn't know for sure what Wilbur would say.

He and Lisa knew each other well enough that he could predict exactly what she'd say, even in response to Trotter's voir dire questions.

It's always safer to elicit the testimony you know

All are good points.

So, Vinny went with direct examination of Mona Lisa rather than cross-examination of the FBI expert for both strategic legal reasons, as well as dramatic purposes for the screenplay.

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[–] ExTechOp (2756) 5 years ago

There’s one more reason, as stated explicitly by someone on the old IMDB board claiming to be one of the original screenwriters.

Vinny had just humiliated Lisa on the coffee shop. He needed a way to make it up to her, and turning her into the star witness served that purpose too

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[–] R_Kane (15828) 5 years ago

Safer? It’s mandatory. No attorney asks a question to which s/he does not know the answer.

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[–] PaladinNJ (20324) 5 years ago

Exactly. Rule every lawyer tries to observe: Never ask a question unless you already know the answer.

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[–] MaximRecoil (4086) 5 years ago

"True: Vinny could have elicited from that FBI expert witness (through cross-examination) the very same testimony that he (eventually) got from his girlfriend."

Says who? There's nothing in the movie to indicate that the FBI guy knows the first thing about cars, let alone minutia specifically regarding the '64 Buick Skylark and '63 Pontiac Tempest. We know that he knows how to operate an HP gas chromatagraph machine, and that's it.

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[–] ExTechOp (2756) a year ago

Says who? There's nothing in the movie to indicate that the FBI guy knows the first thing about cars, let alone minutia specifically regarding the '64 Buick Skylark and '63 Pontiac Tempest. We know that he knows how to operate an HP gas chromatagraph machine, and that's it.

Except that Vinnie DID call Wilbur back to the stand, where he not only validated Mona Lisa's testimony but confirmed that the defendants' car could NOT have made those tire marks.

So Wilbur DID know something about cars, and Vinnie knew it (either from Wilbur's CV or from his reactions during Lisa's testimony).

And Wilbur confirmed Lisa was cute, too, again emphasizing the other reason Vinnie called her, i.e., to make her look good as a way to apologize for being such an ass to her earlier.

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[–] MaximRecoil (4086) a year ago

"Except that Vinnie DID call Wilbur back to the stand, where he not only validated Mona Lisa's testimony but confirmed that the defendants' car could NOT have made those tire marks."

So? Him agreeing, when put on the spot, with something that someone else said, doesn't in any way indicate that he knows the first thing about the subject. We didn't see anyone "voir dire" him like they did to Mona Lisa. Vinny was just using the prosecution's "expert" witness against them, counting on him to be too arrogant to say something like, "I don't know; that's not my area of expertise."

"So Wilbur DID know something about cars, and Vinnie knew it (either from Wilbur's CV or from his reactions during Lisa's testimony)."

There's nothing in the movie to indicate that, not to mention that it's highly, highly unlikely. It was already a huge stretch that Mona Lisa would have known that stuff off the top of her head, regardless of how many mechanics she had in her family and regardless of how much mechanic work she'd done. Knowing things like the wheelbase and track width measurements and factory paint color options along with the specific names of the colors that the factories made up, for any car you care to name; those aren't things that mechanics would typically know off the top of their head. Those things are just trivia that can be looked up in the unlikely event that any mechanic would need to know them (though it was a lot harder to look stuff like that up in 1992 before the modern internet existed).

The creators of the movie were counting on most of the audience not knowing much about cars. When you don't know much about cars yourself, you also don't know what sort of things that people who do know about cars tend to know off the top of their head.

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[–] ejbronte (41) a month ago

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you about Lisa's ability to retain the kind of detail she does: we've already watched her enthusiastically spout off a series of technical trivia in the faucet scene; we've watched her in action during the voir dire sequence. We see her reading the book, and retaining the information about disclosure, which she would probably have told Vinny about when he'd have returned from hunting, with or without files. So she's capable of intelligently and thoroughly absorbing information, which means that her family background, and experience as a mechanic herself, supplies her with tons of opportunity to do so.

As an amateur enthusiast for several things, I can confirm that an enthusiast can retain mountains of trivia about the subject of interest, and can happily overload anyone unfortunate enough to mention the subject. So it's not surprising to me that Lisa would know all this information.

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[–] Filmtenk2 (3380) a month ago

"...happily overload anyone unfortunate enough to mention the subject."

Ha.

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[–] MaximRecoil (4086) a month ago

Again, that's not the type of trivia that a mechanic would have memorized. Mechanics aren't known for memorizing trivia in the first place; the things they know off the top of their head are things they learned from experience. There's no indication that she's supposed to be an enthusiast of any kind, only that she comes from a family full of mechanics, and she's a mechanic too, i.e., a job, not a hobby. There's also no indication that she's supposed to be Rain Man.

Furthermore, by-the-book ignition timing is something that most experienced mechanics wouldn't know for any old engine that someone might name, because they don't use the book (factory service manual) and a timing light to set ignition timing. Instead, they set it by ear. First they get it in the ballpark so that the engine starts easily, then, with the engine still running, they turn the distributor either clockwise or counter-clockwise until the engine sounds right. Then they test drive it, listening for spark knocking. If they don't hear any, then the ignition timing is good.

Looking it up in a book (because ~no one memorizes that sort of thing) is just an extra, superfluous step, because even if they initially set it by the book, they are still going to need to fine tune it by ear anyway, because there are a ton of variables that affect ignition timing, and the chances of the official setting being exactly right for that particular engine are somewhere between zero and none.

So what are we supposed to glean from that scene? That she's an inexperienced mechanic who needs the book to set ignition timing (and still wouldn't get it right because, see above)? Or that she spends her free time reading, and memorizing, every factory service manual from the past several decades?

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[–] MaximRecoil (4086) 5 years ago

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[–] PaladinNJ (20324) 5 years ago

I never understood why they included "A hunch". It would be legal for him to say the defense attorney asked him to check it out.

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[–] ExTechOp (2756) a year ago

I never understood why they included "A hunch". It would be legal for him to say the defense attorney asked him to check it out.

Yeah, that never sat right with me either. He could have easily, legally and ethically said, "As a favor to you, I looked into whether a '63 Pontiac Tempest had been involved in any crimes recently, and to my surprise, you were right."

Maybe from a layperson perspective the screenwriter thought it would look too much like the Sheriff was siding with Vinnie

Although ... looking at my proposed line, seems kinda obvious that movie-version just sounds better.

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[–] jcnyclv (1383) a year ago

The sheriff wanted to take all the credit for it. No way would he ever say the defense attorney asked him to look into it. Vinny was big enough to let it go and let him take the credit. He was just so happy that the truth came out.

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[–] ExTechOp (2756) a year ago

Really?

I thought Sheriff Farley seemed like a decent enough guy. He even gave Vinnie a nod of acknowledgement when he came back into the courtroom.

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[–] jcnyclv (1383) a year ago

He was sort of decent but had a huge ego and Vinny was an outsider. When he nodded at him, it was a nod that he got the information Vinny was looking for. That's why Vinny immediately called him up and said "what did you find out?" because he knew, from the nod, he had information.

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[–] ejbronte (41) a month ago

I think we're okay with Farley here - I didn't get an impression that he had a big ego, and that quick questioning reads like shorthand to me: It would be understood by the court that Vinny wouldn't ask, cutting to the chase: "What did you find out" unless he knew there was something to find out; when Farley says "on a hunch", he again silently acknowledges Vinny with a slight pause and inclination of the head (which Vinny silently acknowledges). On the record, you might be able to interpret it in one way, but in life, Farley indicates at least twice, nonverbally, that he owes the knowledge to Vinny. Scriptwise, we're heading toward the wire, and a sequence with Farley explaining what we've already seen Vinny ask for would drag some of the energy out of the scene. So we get some nice body language between the two and a tacit understanding.

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[–] jcnyclv (1383) a month ago

I didn't see it that way at all. I'll cut and paste my comment from below how I saw it and how others I know understood it: Farley said "on a hunch" because he wanted to take the credit. That was very clear. He wanted to look like the one that had a "hunch" that there was something more to the case than what was being presented. That was OK with Vinny, he wasn't about taking credit, he was about trying to help his cousin.

As far as Vinny saying "what did you find out?" - that's just the way Vinny talked. He was from Brooklyn and that's how a lot of us talk. He was excited and nervous about the prospect of getting his cousin off with the revelation of there being another car so he just blurted out "what did you find out?" Remember, he wasn't your average, professional acting attorney 🙂

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[–] moviechatterer (13440) a month ago

I never got the impression it was because Farley wanted to take the credit.

If anything I'd guess it was , as others said, to show there was no conflict of interset and he wasnt "working for" the defense

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[–] jcnyclv (1383) a month ago

I just watched that scene again and Farley says, and I quote "On a hunch, I took it upon myself to check out if there was any information on a '63 Pontiac Tempest. . . . . ." It's very clear that Farley was taking total credit which, as we know, was OK with Vinny. A nod to Vinny was just between them, not to acknowledge Vinny's role in Farley's discovery with anyone else.

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[–] strntz (10884) a month ago

He was sort of decent but had a huge ego

I think if he had a *huge* ego, he would have fought Vinny's attempt at finding a Tempest because it would have meant his interrogation and the confession were off base. When he first resisted Vinny's request, he fully believed Stan and Billy were the murderers. Honestly, who wouldn't at that point?

Up until Vinny solves the case, it really did look like a railroad job from the witnesses, sheriff, prosecutor, and judge - unless the boys were actually guilty which we couldn't believe as viewers.

So when Farley did find a mint green '63 Tempest with two boys matching the description along with the murder weapon, he was glad the real murderers were caught and just wanted to get a bit of recognition in solving the case, even if it was misplaced. That's why he said "as a hunch", not "I gave this a lot of thought and realized there must be another similar car".

Regarding the "decent" part, you're right - he was. All of them were. Not only was Farley happy they got the right guys, but so was the prosecutor and the judge. Turns out it wasn't a railroad job after all and the witnesses, prosecutor, sheriff, and judge were all good guys.

In this movie, everyone turned out to be the good guys at the end and the bad guys were never shown.

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[–] jcnyclv (1383) a month ago

Farley said "on a hunch" because he wanted to take the credit. That was very clear. He wanted to look like the one that had a "hunch" that there was something more to the case than what was being presented. That was OK with Vinny, he wasn't about taking credit, he was about trying to help his cousin.

I think Farley was open to looking into Vinny's information because by that point Vinny was actually starting to weaken the prosecutor's case. He was finally looking like an attorney, not a boob. He saw that Vinny actually knew what he was talking about and probably thought better of refusing him. He still had a big ego but didn't want to permit a travesty of justice. Heck, even the prosecutor who had a HUGE ego relented at the end.

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[–] strntz (10884) a month ago

I think Farley was open to looking into Vinny's information because by that point Vinny was actually starting to weaken the prosecutor's case.

That's true, but if Farley was hugely egotistical, he would have maintained his "do your own investigation" stance. That he agreed to help after Vinny explained why he was asking what he was asking shows Farley was open to doing the right thing without being a jerk - something that people with huge egos tend to be.

I think our disagreement comes down to definitions. "Huge" ego?

To me, a person with a huge ego is insufferable and will fight anything that challenges their beliefs or actions. Neither Sheriff Farley or Attorney Trotter showed abnormal ego to me ("abnormal" because all humans have some - it's what makes us human).

To me, "on a hunch" doesn't reach the same level as if he said "I saw some inconsistencies in the defense witness's testimony and decided to do some more investigation" - that to me would reach the level of bigger ego.

Sure, he wanted to feel part of the vindication of the innocent boys (who wouldn't?) but I don't see his ego as anything out of the normal realm.

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[–] jcnyclv (1383) a month ago

We can agree to disagree. I have no problem with that 🙂

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[–] jcnyclv (1383) a month ago

BTW yes, I agree that we don't have the exact same definition of a huge ego. To me, one can have a huge ego but still be a decent person and can admit when they're wrong, at least sometimes. Then there are those with huge egos that are, as you say, insufferable and can never admit they're wrong. I don't think everyone with huge egos are always insufferable. So yes, I think that's where some of our difference of opinion comes in.

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[–] jcnyclv (1383) a month ago

I just watched that scene again and Farley says, and I quote "On a hunch, I took it upon myself to check out if there was any information on a '63 Pontiac Tempest. . . . . ." It's very clear that Farley was taking total credit which, as we know, was OK with Vinny.

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[–] strntz (10884) a month ago

The "on a hunch" prefatory part is the important segment of his statement - what comes after is just explaining to the court what investigation he did.

He took credit for finding the Tempest, but again, it doesn't rise to the level of "huge ego" to describe Farley.

Sheriff Farley followed Vinny outside to the phone where Vinny and Lisa were, and asked him "why?" Vinny suspected the Tempest might exist. If he had a huge ego (which is what this whole discussion is about), he would have dismissed what appeared to be Vinny grasping at straws trying to save his cousin. The fact he did look for a Tempest of the same odd color and white convertible top (long shot at that point) shows Farley was a decent sheriff looking to do what was right, something huge ego people wouldn't do.

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