Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb

Jonathan Lynn is the author of the new novel Samaritans, which takes place at a Washington, D.C., hospital. He is the director of 10 films, including Clue and My Cousin Vinny, and he wrote the BBC series Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. His other books include The Complete Yes, Minister and Comedy Rules. He is also an actor and lives in New York.

Q: Your book takes place at a hospital in Washington, D.C. How do you see it fitting in with the current debate over health care in this country?

A: The book is about the utter failure of the U.S. healthcare system. The World Health Organization ranks U.S. healthcare 38th best in the world, behind Colombia (22nd) and Saudi Arabia (26th), and just above Cuba....

To read the rest of this Q&A, click here

OBAMACARE AND YES PRIME MINISTER in the WSJ

The House GOP Health Plan Makes ObamaCare Look Good

Republicans kill the mandate to buy insurance, but that makes a market ‘death spiral’ more likely.

House Speaker Paul Ryan introduces the American Health Care Act at the U.S. Capitol, March 7.PHOTO: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

By

ALAN S. BLINDER

March 12, 2017 5:57 p.m. ET

Speaker Paul Ryan, Rep. Kevin Brady and Rep. Greg Walden unveiled their plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare last week, and jammed it through Mr. Brady’s and Mr. Walden’s committees. Maybe they should have given it an out-of-town tryout first, because it bombed in Washington on opening night and is drawing bad reviews from left and right. 

What logic drove these experienced politicians to produce such a turkey? It certainly wasn’t economic logic, as I’ll demonstrate shortly. It doesn’t seem to have been political logic either, as evidenced by the scathing criticisms from both sides of the aisle. Maybe, as Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle suggested, it was driven by the hilarious political syllogism from the acclaimed British satire “Yes, Prime Minister”: “Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it.”

Poor logic. But I guess that’s what seven years of ranting against ObamaCare can do to you.

 

Celebrating My Cousin Vinny's 25th Anniversary

From the Wall Street Journal:

Atticus Finch, Perry Mason and Michael Clayton Have Nothing on the Legal Profession’s Favorite Attorney: Vinny

 

The 1992 comedy ‘My Cousin Vinny,’ with its smart-aleck hero played by Joe Pesci, is still a hit with lawyers; ‘a paean to the American system of justice’

"My Cousin Vinny" has been a favorite of real-life members of the legal profession since it debuted 25 years ago. Photo: 20th Century Fox/Everett Collection

By

JACOB GERSHMAN

Updated March 12, 2017 9:05 p.m. ET

20 COMMENTS

Vinny Gambini flunked his bar exam five times before passing it, which is among the reasons he is admired by Joseph F. Anderson Jr., a federal judge in South Carolina.

“Despite the many setbacks he endures, Vinny’s devotion to his clients and the cause of justice never waivers,” the judge wrote. “The lesson here: Good lawyers are not quitters.”

It was a quarter-century ago Monday when the movie “My Cousin Vinny” made its debut in theaters. Over time, the comedy and its leather-jacketed, smart-aleck hero, played by Joe Pesci, have swaggered into the pantheon of legal cinema, taking a seat alongside the genre’s dramatic greats, “12 Angry Men” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

‘Vinny Gambini’ 

Judges have referenced it in rulings more than two dozen times. Just this month, “Vinny” made a cameo in an opinion written by U.S. Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown in Washington, D.C. Lawyers talk about the movie with a “Casablanca”-like fondness. Professors at elite law schools have invited “Vinny” into their classrooms, using the film as a teaching tool for courses in evidence and trial advocacy.

“The movie is actually a paean to the American system of justice,” says Judge Anderson, who estimates he has seen it up to 50 times. He owns the original plywood “Sac-O-Suds” store sign featured in the movie and the wooden gavel banged by the late Fred Gwynne as the film’s fearsome judge. “It’s a timeless movie,” he says.

The original ‘Sac-O-Suds’ sign, from the movie 'My Cousin Vinny,' is owned by Joseph F. Anderson Jr., a federal judge. PHOTO: JOSEPH F. ANDERSON JR.

“My Cousin Vinny” tells the story of Vincent La Guardia Gambini, a mechanic-turned lawyer from Brooklyn, and his trial by fire in small-town Alabama.

His younger cousin and a pal are driving in the South when they get mistaken as the killers of a convenience-store clerk. They have little money and hire Vinny, who has practiced law for six weeks, is good at arguing, but hasn’t a clue about how to try a case. His courtroom stumbles earn him jail-time for contempt. Shamed by his brassy fiancée Mona Lisa Vito (played by Marisa Tomei, who won a best-supporting actress Oscar for the role), Vinny learns his craft. By the end, he’s proven both himself as an attorney and his clients’ innocence.

“If you asked any lawyer you know, what’s your favorite legal movie, I bet 80% of the time the answer is ‘My Cousin Vinny’,” says Raffi Melkonian, a Harvard Law School-educated appellate litigator in Houston.

That 80% camp included the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who has been quoted as saying he could watch it “over and over again” and made a reference to the film during oral arguments when he asked, to laughter, about “the real case of My Uncle Vinny,” getting the title almost right.

When released in 1992, the Jonathan Lynn-directed comedy garnered warm reviews and did well at the box office. It hardly seemed destined for legendary status. “The kind of movie home video was invented for,” wrote Roger Ebert.

So what explains the veneration of “Vinny”?

“There are a lot of legal movies that are just kind of nonsense,” says Mr. Melkonian. “For whatever reason, ‘My Cousin Vinny’ feels real.”

Director Mr. Lynn studied law at Cambridge and was “determined not to have anything in the movie that was legally incorrect,” assuming accuracy would be funnier.

“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.

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.

It is among the film’s “textbook examples of effective cross-examination,” wrote Judge Anderson in an essay titled: “Ten Things Every Trial Lawyer Could Learn from Vincent La Guardia Gambini.”

Others tips, he wrote, include perseverance, keeping promises and the “proper use of experiential experts.” In the movie’s climax, Mona Lisa, who comes from a family of mechanics, is summoned to the witness stand. Her testimony proves Vinny’s clients weren’t driving the getaway car, prompting prosecutors to drop all charges. 

The “greatest expert witness OF ALL TIME!” tweeted Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett.

Compared with “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Vinny” is a richer trove of lawyer practice hints, says U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner. (He deems the Gregory Peck-starring adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel to be “rather corny.”)

A scene from ‘My Cousin Vinny’ starring Joe Pesci. PHOTO: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX/EVERETT COLLECTION

Attorneys also nod knowingly at the courtroom smackdowns delivered by Judge Haller. “When it comes to procedure…I’m not a patient man,” the character warns Vinny early on. 

“We have all experienced judges like” Haller, says attorney Alan Dershowitz.

U.S. Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski says he views the film as a reassuring reminder of the presumption of innocence and “that a good lawyer can make a difference.”

Judge Kozinski, who sits on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, has organized two screenings of the film for his colleagues. He recalls that at a gathering of chief circuit judges in Washington, D.C., one judge handed everyone bags of raw grits as a “Vinny” homage.

Mr. Lynn, the director, says he first became aware of Vinny’s legal fan club about 15 years ago when federal judges invited him to speak at a judicial conference. “I thought that was odd,” he remembers thinking at the time.

If there is a limit to the appreciation, it might have been reached last year in a federal courtroom in Texas.

Cary Moomjian, a drilling-industry expert and registered lawyer representing himself as the plaintiff in a dispute, wrote a brief asserting that the defendant’s claim for attorney fees should be denied because it’s “BS.”

Mr. Moomjian specified he was paraphrasing a line from “My Cousin Vinny,” but U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay replied with a Haller-like rebuke. 

“The undersigned has been a judge of this court for almost 18 years, and no attorney has ever used this type of language in a filing with the court,” he wrote.

Reached by phone, Mr. Moomjian had no apologies: “I was trying to inject a little humor and got nailed.”

More on Vinny's 25th anniversary:

NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/13/519954261/my-cousin-vinny-turns-25

The Wrap. 

http://www.thewrap.com/my-cousin-vinny-25-anniversary-m But whatever you think.arisa-tomei-joe-pesci/

ABC News:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/whats-yoot-cousin-vinny-turns-25/story?id=46092720

Decider.com

http://decider.com/2017/03/13/marisa-tomei-deserved-oscar-for-my-cousin-vinny/

A Quiz from zoo.com

https://www.zoo.com/quiz/how-well-do-you-remember-my-cousin-vinny?oid=669

 There is also a MY COUSIN VINNY Facebook page: 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Cousin-Vinny/112451085432907

Sir Antony Jay

Tony Jay, my collaborator on Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister died recently. This produced a flood of praise for our work together, like this article in the FT. I'm only sorry he's not here to read it.

I wrote a tribute to him which was shared on Facebook by many thousands of people, and on twitter too. I received a huge response. Here it is. An edited version was published in The Times (London).

Sir Antony Jay

A tribute by Jonathan Lynn

Tony Jay, my writing partner on Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, died yesterday. By chance, my wife Rita and I went to visit him on Saturday and saw him before he was taken to the hospital for what turned out to be the last time. He was in pain but when he saw me he smiled and immediately offered me a drink - as he always did. Rita told him that we loved him and he smiled, and then he lapsed into unconsciousness. I am profoundly sad.

Tony was a genuinely original thinker, and a very funny writer. His father, Ernest Jay was a character actor, best known for playing Dennis the Dachshund on Larry The Lamb In Toytown on the BBC’s Home Service and Tony’s first job as a teenager was as an ASM with his father on a Shakespearean theatrical tour during the war. A classicist, he took First at Cambridge, remained fluent in Latin and Greek his whole life, and joined the BBC. As a TV producer, first on Tonight with Cliff Michelmore, and later as Head of BBC Talks and Features Department, his influence was enormous: That Was The Week That Was was produced in his department and later he created the format for David Frost's next show The Frost Report - he planned the first 13 episodes, in which John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett were teamed and all became TV stars as a result.

Almost uniquely, he had a foot in two different worlds: TV news and serious political activity - and show business! He worked on budget speeches and party conference speeches for Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson and Margaret Thatcher, not to add jokes but to help shape and communicate their message, and he received a knighthood after turning around Thatcher’s third and last election campaign with a significant party political broadcast. He produced the Milton Friedman series Free To Choose, and became converted to neo-liberal economics.

I didn’t share his political views and I also feared that these activities would become known while we wrote Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, which might have given the public the impression that it was a conservative programme. It wasn’t, and fortunately this didn’t happen. Yes, Minister was about government, not politics. Certainly not about party politics. Interestingly, it seemed to reinforce the views of whoever was watching: Tories thought it was a Tory show, Labour voters thought it was Labour. In fact, it was neither - it was, as Rupert Murdoch falsely claimed later about Fox News, fair and balanced.

Tony was a fascinating paradox: though part of the establishment, he remained an iconoclast who was willing to make a joke about almost anything.

On leaving the BBC he wrote two influential books on management, Management and Machiavelli (a big best-seller) and Corporation Man. On The Frost Programme (ITV) he guided David Frost on how to conduct important and difficult interviews, such as the famous one with George Brown, the Foreign Secretary. He edited the first full-length documentary about the Queen and the Royal Family and was intensely proud of the CVO that he was given afterwards. He was a member of the Annan Committee on Broadcasting and drafted the final report which profoundly criticized the BBC.

Then, going into business, he showed himself to be a true entrepreneur. He started the management training film company Video Arts with several partners, including John Cleese. Spotting a gap in the market - he realised that training films, traditionally rather boring, would be much more fun to watch if they showed the audience how not to do a job - he put up the money for the first film himself. The company grew rapidly under his chairmanship and was sold 17 years later for many millions of pounds.

I met him when he started Video Arts: I had known Cleese at Cambridge and he asked me to act in the film for a deferred payment. Never expecting to be paid, I did it for fun and was astonished a few months later to receive the deferment and an offer to act in two more such films. After that, when Cleese withdrew somewhat, to work on Fawlty Towers, Tony asked me write training films, sometimes with him, sometimes just briefed by him. In all, I think I wrote or contributed to about 20 of them.

It was around then that he had the idea for a comedy show about the Civil Service and asked me if I'd like to write it. I wasn't keen at first because I was busy as the Artistic Director of the Cambridge Theatre Company and I needed the income from the training films to support my theatre work. But three years later I was looking for something new to write and we started researching the idea.

We worked together on and off, from the early 1970s until four years ago when illness overtook him. In all that time we never had an angry word. It was, in my opinion, a perfect partnership and it changed my life. He regarded himself as the keeper of Sir Humphrey’s soul, and me as the keeper of Jim Hacker’s. Certain jobs were always left to me: first draft scripts were invariably too long and he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) cut them; smiling, he quoted Pontius Pilate: “I have written what I have written.”

Later, when approached about becoming Chairman of the BBC, he opted instead for retirement to a converted barn in Somerset where his adored wife Jill could have an organic farm.

He gave his polite attention to everyone he met including our sheepdog, named Humphrey because we thought he was sound. He was a loyal, affectionate and very British friend. I have hugged many men over the years but I tried it only once with Tony and he was startled and uncomfortable. Manly handshakes were the right way to express warmth. But he hugged Rita a lot.

I learned more from him than I could ever explain. He was erudite, witty, full of funny thoughts and new ideas, and utterly easy to work with. His death is, for me, the end of an era. For me and Rita it is also the loss of a very dear and loyal friend. We will miss him a lot, and we send our condolences to Jill and their splendid and talented children and grandchildren.

Playbill on The Player's Tribute to Jonathan Lynn and "CLUE"

Stage and screen actor Michael Urie, Tony nominee Brandon Uranowitz, "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" actress Sara Chase and Lauren Adams, are among the stars headlining The Players' Dec. 13 tribute performance of the film "Clue."

Presented by the private arts social club The Players, the cult classic will be performed live for one night only as a tribute to Jonathan Lynn, director and screenwriter of "Clue."

Conceived and directed by Tim Drucker (Gigantic) and Jason Michael Snow (Book of Mormon), the performance will also feature Brynn O'Malley (Honeymoon in Vegas), Christopher John O’Neill (The Book of Mormon), Amy Jo Jackson (Dani Girl) and Nikka Graff Lanzarone. The event is hosted by Players Michael Barra, Michael Gerbino and Michael McCurdy.

Based on the popular board game and set in a gothic mansion, the 1985 whodunit starred Tim Curry, Michael McKean, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan, Martin Mull and Lesley Ann Warren. Lynn went on to direct My Cousin Vinny, The Whole Nine Yards and The Distinguished Gentleman. He is also the co-writer of the award-winning BBC series "Yes Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister."

"Jonathan’s rich and varied career is grounded in a love of comedy, playfulness, and extraordinary writing and performance that epitomizes the spirit and history of The Players," said the club’s president Arthur Makar in a press statement. "We cannot think of a better way to celebrate his achievements than by gathering some of today’s brightest stars in our historic mansion to bring his classic comedy to life on the stage."

Founded in 1888 by actor Edwin Booth with 15 other incorporators including Mark Twain, The Players is a New York City-based social club for theatre, television, film, music, and publishing professionals, patrons of the arts and business and civic leaders.

Attendance to the "Clue" performance is limited to club members but ten members of the public will have have an opportunity to win two tickets via an online competition. For contest details visit The Players Facebook page.

- See more at: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/michael-urie-and-brandon-uranowitz-headline-celebrity-performance-of-clue-374451#sthash.hFowNPXh.dpuf

Michael Urie, Brandon Uranowitz & More to Lead CLUE Tribute Performance in NYC on December 13th

The Players, the historic private social club on Gramercy Park, will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the cult comedy classic "Clue" with an all-star tribute performance honoring Jonathan Lynn, the film's director and screenwriter, on Sunday, December 13th.

2EB964D22-EADE-AB03-1A9A38F3C720239B.jpg

Michael Urie (BUYER & CELLAR, "Ugly Betty"), Sara Chase and Lauren Adams ("Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"), Brandon Uranowitz (AN AMERICAN IN PARIS), and Max Jenkins ("The Mysteries of Laura") are among the stars of stage and screen slated to perform in the one-night-only tribute. Prior to the performance, Lynn will be feted for his career achievements with an honorary membership to The Players by the club's president Arthur Makar.

Based on the popular board game, set in a Gothic mansion, and featuring three alternate endings in keeping with the game's whodunit theme, Clue starred a who's who of comedy greats including Tim Curry, Michael McKean, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan, Martin Mull, and Leslie Ann Warren. Although it received mixed reviews and fared poorly at the box office at the time of its release in 1985, the fast-talking, high-concept film went on to become a cult classic (Buzzfeed hails it as "one of the most beloved films of the 1980s") and Lynn proceeded to direct such classic films as My Cousin Vinny, The Whole Nine Yards, and The Distinguished Gentleman. Lynn is also the co-writer of the phenomenally successful, award-winning BBC series "Yes Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister."

"Jonathan's rich and varied career is grounded in a love of comedy, playfulness, and extraordinary writing and performance that epitomizes the spirit and history of The Players," said Makar. "We cannot think of a better way to celebrate his achievements than by gathering some of today's brightest stars in our historic mansion to bring his classic comedy to life on the stage.

Founded in 1888 by actor Edwin Booth with 15 other incorporators including Mark Twain, The Players is New York City's premier social club for theatre, television, film, music, and publishing professionals, patrons of the arts, and business and civic leaders. Housed in the Booth mansion, a landmark Greek Revival townhouse on Gramercy Park, The Players celebrates the rich cultural life of New York City with exclusive membership events that include live performances, readings by leading authors and playwrights, film screenings, and special dining and cocktail experiences in its famous Grill Room. Presidents of The Players have included Jose Ferrer, Lynn Redgrave and Timothy Hutton.

While attendance is limited to members of The Players, ten members will of the public will have have an opportunity to win two tickets via an online competition. To enter, fans must post videos on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter of themselves lip synching (using Dubsmash) or reciting dialogue from the film with the hashtag #Clue30th and #ThePlayers. Deadline for submitting videos is December 7th and the winners will be selected at random and notified by December 8th. For contest details visit The Players Facebook page.

Conceived and directed by Tim Drucker (GIGANTIC) and Jason Michael Snow (BOOK OF MORMON), the performance will also feature Brynn O'Malley (HONEYMOON IN VEGAS), Christopher John O'Neill (THE BOOK OF MORMON), Amy Jo Jackson (DANI GIRL), and Nikka Graff Lanzarone. The event is hosted by Players Michael Barra, Michael Gerbino, and Michael McCurdy.