Trivia for
Goodfellas (1990) More at IMDbPro »

• According to Maxim magazine, Joe Pesci wrote and directed the "You think I'm funny?" scene at Martin Scorsese's request.
  
  
• The ending shot of Joe Pesci shooting at the camera is a visual reference to The Great Train Robbery (1903), whose ending shot is of the villain, Justus D. Barnes, shooting at the camera.
  
  
• Based on the book "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi. The movie was renamed to avoid confusion with the TV series "Wiseguy" (1987).
  
  
• Mike Starr, who plays "Frenchy" in the film, plays the same role in The 10 Million Dollar Getaway (1991) (TV), a Jimmy Burke/Conway telling of the Lufthansa heist portion of "Goodfellas".
  
  
• The word "fuck" is used 296 times, for an average of 2.04 fucks per minute. About half of them are said by Joe Pesci.
  
  
• It was claimed that at the time the real life gangster Jimmy Burke was so happy to have Robert De Niro play him that he phoned him from prison to give him a few pointers. Author/screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi denies this, saying De Niro and Burke had never spoken, but admitting that there were men around the set all the time who had known all of the principal characters very well.
  
  
• In the scene where Henry and Karen Hill are negotiating to enter the Witness Protection Program, former U.S. Attorney Edward McDonald plays himself, re-enacting what he did in real life.
  
  
• Director Martin Scorsese's mother, Catherine Scorsese, plays Tommy's mother. She ad-libbed the dinner scene. Scorsese's father, Charles Scorsese, plays the prisoner who puts too many onions in the tomato sauce.
  
  
• Jimmy Burke, on whom Jimmy Conway was based, would have been eligible for parole in 2004, however, he died of lung cancer in 1996 while still in prison.
  
  
• For the famous "Layla" montage, Martin Scorsese actually played the "piano coda" section of the song during the shooting of each scene so that certain bars of the piano piece would match up with certain shots.
  
  
• After Joe Pesci's mother had seen the film, she told her son that the movie was good, but asked him if he had to swear so much.
  
  
• The long tracking shot that ends with Henny Youngman performing had to be filmed many times because Youngman kept forgetting his lines.
  
  
• The painting that Tommy's mother shows to Tommy, Jimmy and Henry, is based on a picture from the November 1978 National Geographic.
  
  
• The black-and-white movie that Karen is watching on television in her house is The Jazz Singer (1927), a movie about a Jewish person trying to reconcile with his estranged parents.
  
  
• The young "extra" carrying a J&B box off the truck and into the Bamboo Lounge is Glenn Taranto.
  
  
• According to the real Henry Hill, whose life was the basis for the book and film, Joe Pesci's portrayal of Tommy DeVito was 90% to 99% accurate, with one notable exception - the real Tommy DeVito was a massively built, strapping man, in contrast to Pesci's diminutive size.
  
  
• When Paulie confronts Henry after Henry's released from prison, Paul Sorvino improvised the slap to Ray Liotta's face. Hence Liotta's reaction.
  
  
• The part of singer Bobby Vinton was played by his son Robbie Vinton. Robbie lip-synched to his father's recording.
  
  
• At Martin Scorsese's request, associates of the actual people were always on the set of the film, giving helpful and essential information about the life, people, settings and moods.
  
  
• Ray Liotta spent much time with the real Henry Hill for a few months before filming started to gain an exact idea of how to play him. After the film was released, Hill stated in interviews that many mobsters ask him how can they have their stories told the way his was in this film. Apparently, they've seen and enjoyed the movie.
  
  
• When Karen sees Janice Rossi in the prison visitor registry, the name below is listed as "Ballibusteros".
  
  
• Frank Vincent originally wanted the role of Paulie Cicero, which went to Paul Sorvino.
  
  
• Ray Liotta listened to FBI phone-tap cassettes featuring Henry Hill while driving to and from the set.
  
  
• The dinner scene with Tommy's mother was almost completely improvised by the actors, including Tommy asking his mother if he could borrow her butcher's knife and Jimmy's "hoof" comment.
  
  
• Martin Scorsese wanted William Petersen to star in this movie, but Petersen declined.
  
  
• Voted #1 in Total Film's 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time list (November 2005).
  
  
• In a documentary entitled The Real Goodfella (2006) (TV), which aired in the UK, Henry Hill claimed that Robert De Niro would phone him seven to eight times a day to discuss certain things about Jimmy's character, such as how Jimmy would hold his cigarette, etc.
  
  
• When Martin Scorsese selected Ray Liotta for the role of Henry Hill, at first, producer Irwin Winkler didn't agree with the decision to cast Liotta. Scorsese could not convince Winkler to agree with him. One night, Winkler was in a restaurant and Liotta approached him and asked for a minute alone; so they walked into the bar area and he told him personally why he thought he was good for the role. The next day Winkler called Scorsese and told him to go right ahead.
  
  
• During one of the final scenes in the movie, Henry Hill is shown opening his front door and picking up a newspaper. Close inspection reveals that the newspaper is the Youngstown Vindicator. This detail was included by Martin Scorsese as an homage to Youngstown, Ohio, which has been referred to as Mobtown USA.
  
  
• Joseph Bono has a small role as a gangster in both Goodfellas (1990) and Raging Bull (1980). Guido, Bono's character in Raging Bull (1980), only has a couple of lines. During the pool scene, Guido hears about a guy who was hitting on Vickie. He says, "That's the same guy..? I gotta break his legs... No, I'll catch him." In Goodfellas (1990), Bono has a cameo as a mobster named Mikey Franzese, who appears briefly as the camera pans through the Bamboo Lounge near the start of the movie. Mikey's only line was: "I haven't saw that guy. Yeah, I wanna see him."
  
  
• After the premiere, Henry Hill was kicked out of the Witness Protection Program. Due to the movie's popularity, Hill went around telling everyone his true identity, causing the government to remove him from the program.
  
  
• The 1912 American Mutoscope & Biograph Company groundbreaking gangster film short The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) influenced director Martin Scorsese in the making of his own gangster films Goodfellas (1990) and Gangs of New York (2002). The film was picked by Scorcese for his 2005 tribute at Beaubourg, centre d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou (1977) in Paris, France, as one of his favorite films. Biograph is the oldest movie company in America and in existence today.
  
  
• The movie's line "As far back as I could remember I've always wanted to be a gangster." was voted as the #20 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• The movie's line "How am I funny?" was voted as the #87 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #92 Greatest Movie of All Time.
  
  
• Ranked #2 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Gangster" in June 2008
  
  
• Although Scorsese and Pileggi collaborated on the screenplay (and received Oscar nominations for doing so), much of the film's eventual dialog was improvised by the actors.
  
  
• The now-legendary Steadicam trip through the nightclub kitchen was a happy accident - Scorsese had been denied permission to go in the front way and had to improvise an alternative.
  
  
• Originally Scorsese planned to make this before The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) but when funding for his religious film finally materialized, he decided to postpone "Wiseguy", the film's working title.
  
  
• Al Pacino was offered the role of Jimmy Conway but he turned it down due to fears of typecasting. Ironically, that same year Pacino ended up playing a gangster - Big Boy Caprice in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy (1990). He admits he regrets this decision.
  
  
• Ray Liotta turned down the part of Harvey Dent in Batman (1989) in order to make Goodfellas (1990).
  
  
• The studio was initially very nervous about the film due to its extreme violence and language. The film reportedly received the worst preview response in the studio's history. Scorsese said that "the numbers were so low it was funny". Nevertheless the film was released without alteration to overwhelming critical acclaim, cementing Scorsese's reputation as America's foremost film-maker.
  
  
• Joe Pesci's Oscar acceptance speech is the third shortest in the Academy's history. All Pesci said was "This is an honor and a privilege, thank you", later admitting that he didn't say very much because he genuinely felt that he didn't have a chance of winning. (The shortest acceptance speeches are "Thank you", made by William Holden in 1954 when he won Best Actor for Stalag 17 (1953) and "Thanks", which was all that Alfred Hitchcock said when he won an Honorary Oscar in 1968.)
  
  
• Martin Scorsese first got wind of Nicholas Pileggi's book "Wiseguy" when he was handed the galley proofs. Although Scorsese had sworn off making another gangster movie, he immediately cold-called the writer and told him, "I've been waiting for this book my entire life." To which Pileggi replied, "I've been waiting for this phone call my entire life."
  
  
• Voted #6 on Empire magazine's 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time (September 2008).
  
  
• In a few scenes you can see a Taxi service called Four Ones. That is a real cab service in Glendale Queens (718) 441-4765, interesting as real phone numbers are rarely used in Hollywood films.
  
  
• According to Ray Liotta, both Robert De Niro and Nancy Sinatra pranked his make-up room with a (fake) severed horse head, as an homage to The Godfather (1972) and an initiation into Mafioso films.
  
  
• Louis Eppolito (Fat Tony) wrote "Mafia Cop," a true story about growing up in a mafia family and becoming an NYPD officer. In April 2006, he was convicted of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, and racketeering, for working as a mafia informant and hit-man. The conviction was overturned due to a technicality, then reinstated on appeal in 2008. In 2009, he was sentenced to life plus 100 years in prison.
  
  
• Robert De Niro's character, Jimmy Conway, was based on the real life Jimmy Burke, whose birth name was James Conway.
  
  
• The MPAA ordered 10 frames of blood removed from the film before granting it an 'R' rating.
  
  
• Tony Darrow who plays Sonny Bunz, the owner of the Bamboo Lounge, worked in the real-life Bamboo Lounge where Henry Hill, and the people whom the film's characters are based on would hang out.
  
  
• The later life of Henry Hill, after he enters the Witness Protection Program, was also adapted, more humorously, into My Blue Heaven (1990/I) the same year. Appropriately, that film was written by Nora Ephron, who is Nicholas Pileggi's wife.
  
  
• Martin Scorsese reportedly didn't want Ray Liotta to have contact with the real Henry Hill before filming because he had never directed Liotta before and didn't want Hill to influence Liotta.
  
  
• The film's soundtrack did not include many of the songs featured in the film, most of them being the tracks played during the lengthy scene where Henry rushes around trying to make his drug deal. The songs sampled during the scene are, in order, "Jump Into the Fire" by Nilsson, "Memo From Turner" by the Rolling Stones, "Magic Bus" by The Who (from the Live at Leeds album), "Monkey Man" by the Rolling Stones, "Mannish Boy" by Muddy Waters, "What is Life" by George Harrison, "Mannish Boy" again and "Toad" by Cream.
  
  
• According to Ray Liotta on the special edition DVD of this film, Sean Penn was also considered as Henry Hill.
  
  
• Henry Hill's life in the Witness Protection Program was the basis for another film this same year: My Blue Heaven (1990/I). The writer of that film, Nora Ephron is Nicholas Pileggi's wife.
  
  

• SPOILER: During filming of the scene in which his character is killed by Joe Pesci, Michael Imperioli broke a glass in his hand and had to be rushed to the emergency room. When doctors saw what appeared to be a gunshot wound in his chest, they tried to treat it. When Imperioli told them what was really up, he was made to wait for three hours. Director Martin Scorsese told Imperioli that someday he'd be telling that story on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (1992). The prediction came true in March, 2000.
  
  
• SPOILER: Charles Scorsese, director Martin Scorsese's father, plays Vinnie, the fellow prisoner who puts too many onions in the sauce. Vinnie is present at Tommy's death and is the voice on the phone telling Jimmy about it.
  
  
• SPOILER: Michael Imperioli, who plays Spider in the movie, is shot in the foot for being slow with some drinks. In "The Sopranos" (1999), his character shoots a bakery employee in the foot for making him wait. As he was leaving and the employee was yelling that he shot his foot, Micheal replies "It happens"
  
  
• SPOILER: Body count: 10
  
  
• SPOILER: Henry states that Tommy was shot in the face, so that his mother could not give him an open-casket funeral. Tommy's real life counterpart, Tommy DeSimone, was killed in January of 1979. To date, his remains have never been recovered.
  
  

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