Carlito's Way - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Carlito's Way or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Carlito's Way

[albert]

The exterior of the hospital where Carlito visits his bedridden attorney is the same one where Vito Corleone is taken in The Godfather (1972), also starring Al Pacino.

[sophie]

Brian De Palma's first choice for the role of Gail was Irish actress Alison Doody who played Elsa in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). She rejected the offer because of a topless dance sequence she would have to perform in the movie.

[albert]

Ghostface Killah sampled, "Sorry boys, all the stitches in the world can't sew me together again, Lay down...lay down. Gonna stretch me out in Fernandez funeral home on Hun and Ninth street. Always knew I'd make a stop there, but a lot later than a whole gang of people thought.... Last of the Mo-Ricans.... Well, maybe not the last. Can't come with me on this trip, though. Getting the shakes now, last call for drinks, bars closing down.... Sun's out, where are we going for breakfast? Don't wanna go far. Rough night, tired baby.... Tired...." for his 1996 song "The Soul Controller."

[bessie]

Tony Taglialucci's escape from Rikers Island, a night shoot mid-river, was considered impossible. Instead, the production used a Brooklyn shipyard where Kleinfeld's boat was lowered into an empty "lock" into which river water was pumped. Smoke machines and towers of space lights were installed.

[kylie]

Brian De Palma makes a cameo appearance in the film during Viggo Mortensen's introduction scene. De Palma can be seen exchanging a "handshake" with Mortensen.

[ivan]

The film cast includes two Oscar winners: Al Pacino and Sean Penn; and two Oscar nominees: Viggo Mortensen and Paul Mazursky.

[addison]

David Koepp wrestled with the voice-over throughout the writing process. Initially the voice-over was to take place in the hospital, but Brian De Palma suggested the train station platform.

[jesse]

Al Pacino first met Judge 'Edwin Torres' in 1973 while he was preparing for Serpico (1973). At the time, Torres was in the midst of writing the novels on which the film is based and discussed them with Pacino. Twenty years later, Torres took Pacino to East Harlem to help him prepare of the role of Carlito.

[sylvia]

The name of Carlito's nightclub is "El Paraíso", the same name as the food stand that Al Pacino's character operated in Scarface (1983).

[tammy]

13 characters are killed including Carlito in the ending sequence.

[maureen]

The first scheduled shoot was actually the Grand Central climax, but this had to be rethought when Al Pacino showed up on crutches. Instead, the ill-fated drug deal in the pool hall, kickstarted production. This was a scene that the studio originally asked Brian De Palma to make shorter. De Palma actually extended the scene but used tension building techniques that tricked the studio execs into thinking it was shorter and therefore loving it.

[jessie]

Pachanga's lines were originally written in phonetically spelled, heavily accented slang. But some of the crew members of Latino descent were offended by this. David Koepp rewrote Pachanga's lines in standard English and Luis Guzmán was directed to speak with a heavy accent and improvise some slang.

[brent]

Actor John Leguizamo, who portrays mobster Benny Blanco, later co-starred as Federal U.S. Customs Service special agent Emir Abreu in Brad Furman's espionage gangster drama The Infiltrator (2016), a movie's whose story-line also involved drug trafficking.

[bernice]

The location used as Gail's apartment (5-7 Minetta Lane according to movie-locations.com) is the same building used to represent Frank Serpico's apartment in Serpico (1973), which also starred Al Pacino. Minetta Lane in Greenwich Village is used often in films, TV and commercials because it is only one block long, with a bend in it. Both ends of the street can easily be blocked off for filming.

[eli]

According to producer Martin Bregman, he initially did not like the screenplay for this picture.