Where Was My Cousin Vinny Actually Filmed?
Despite what the title might have you believe, the movie "My Cousin Vinny" isn't just about Vinny. While Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci) and Bill (Ralph Macchio) are certainly the heroes of the story and the characters who undergo the most development, the film is just as much about its setting as its characters. Half the struggle these two undergo throughout the film are the result of a culture clash between the New York-born Vinny and Bill, and the residents of a rural town in the heart of Alabama. They're complete fish out of water who couldn't tell you the cooking time on a pot of grits, much less win a murder trial in the deep south.
Because of that, the film tries its hardest to portray southern culture with at least some accuracy. For instance, the aforementioned grits originally serve as part of a joke about the unhealthy nature of down-home, lard-laden southern cuisine before it becomes a key piece of evidence in the ensuing murder trial. It's an innocuous piece of information that is nonetheless important to southern culture. This, however, begs the question: if "My Cousin Vinny" is all about the south, then was it actually filmed there?
My Cousin Vinny had a few different film locations
For the most part, the film locations in "My Cousin Vinny" are pretty darn accurate. However, most of them are spread throughout different towns and counties in Georgia, rather than Alabama where the film takes place. Important locations from the film such as the Sac-O-Suds convenience store and the town square are located in Monticello, Georgia (via Road Trip Memories). Likewise, the prison featured throughout the film is actually Lee Arrendale State Prison in Alto, Georgia. Even the hotel scenes were filmed at actual hotels located in Eatonton and Bostwick, Georgia, respectively.
According to Rolling Stone, the interior courthouse scenes were shot in a warehouse in Covington, Georgia. Bruce McGill, who played Sheriff Dean Farley, told Rolling Stone, "It rains a lot in Georgia. And when it rained, that warehouse was useless to record sound. It was like a tin roof, like being inside a drum. We'd have to stop filming all the time and wait for the rain to stop."
Thankfully, the locations had the side effect of adding authenticity to the whole movie. Because they filmed in Georgia, everything from the landscape to the architecture looks appropriate for a story set in the deep south. Which, at the end of the day, probably makes it a better film than if it were to be shot on fabricated sets in Los Angeles.