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When Harry
Met Sally... (1989)
In Rob Reiner's popular romantic comedy from Nora Ephron's
script:
- the various vignettes of elderly couples reflecting
on their relationships (with one-liners such as: "...you know
a great melon")
- the film's premise: can a man and a woman be friends
without sex becoming an issue?, and the eleven year friendship/relationship
between journalist Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) and political consultant
Harry Burns (Billy Crystal)
- in the film's early road trip sequence during a 1977
18-hour car trip from Chicago to NYC, the roadside cafe scene of
fussy and proper Sally Albright with slobbish student
Harry ordering apple pie and ice cream: "I'd
like the chef salad, please, with the oil and vinegar on the side.
And the apple pie a la mode....But I'd like the pie heated, and I
don't want the ice cream on top. I want it on the side. And I'd like
strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice
cream, just whipped cream, but only if it's real. If it's out of
a can, then nothing"; the Waitress asked: "Not even
the pie?"; Sally answered: "No, just the pie. But then
not heated" - while Harry
just ordered: "the
Number Three"
- the scene of Harry describing his recurring sex fantasy
dream to Sally: "I had my dream again - where I'm making love
and the Olympic judges are watching? I've nailed the compulsories,
so this is it: the finals. I got a 9.8 from the Canadian, a perfect
10 from the American. And my mother, disguised as an East German
judge, gave me a 5.6. Must've been the dismount"; then it was
Sally's turn to describe her 'embarrassing' sex dream: "Basically
it's the same one I've been having since I was 12...OK, there's this
guy...He's just kinda faceless...He rips off my clothes...That's
it...Sometimes I vary it a little...What I'm wearing"
- the "high-maintenance/low-maintenance" split-screen
phone discussion between Harry and Sally, while they were both watching
the conclusion of Casablanca from their respective beds: Harry: "There
are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance...You're
the worst kind; you're high maintenance but you think you're low
maintenance....You don't see that? Waiter, I'll begin with a house
salad, but I don't want the regular dressing. I'll have the balsamic
vinegar and oil, but on the side. And then the salmon with the mustard
sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side. 'On the side' is
a very big thing for you..."
- the notorious, crowded New York deli-restaurant scene
of Sally's fully-clothed, simulated orgasm with table-beating and
ecstatic moans and gasps to prove to Harry how most women occasionally
fake orgasms: ("Ooooh. Oh, God. Oooooh. Oh God!..."); she
demonstrated with her stereotyped orgasmic display of a loud and
long series of pants, groans, gasps, hair rufflings, caresses, table
poundings, and ecstatic releases; as she finished climaxing, she
yelled: "Yes, Yes, YES! YES! YES!";
her simulation was foot-noted by an elderly patron (director Rob
Reiner's mother Estelle) exclaiming to the waiter at a nearby table:
"I'll have what she's having"
Simulated Orgasm
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"I'll have what she's having"
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- the scene of the simultaneous, split-screen four-way
phone call the next day, when Harry called his friend Jess (Bruno Kirby)
and Sally called her friend Marie (Carrie Fisher) to tell them that
they had just had sex - and when the call was finished, Marie asked
Jess: "Tell
me I never have to be out there again"
- the last scene in which Harry frantically ran down
a New York street (to the tune of Sinatra's "It Had to Be You")
toward a hotel's crowded New Year's Eve party where he finally reached
Sally and expressed his love to her, just after the stroke of midnight:
("How
about this way? I love that you get cold when it's seventy-one degrees
out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich.
I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're
lookin' at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with
you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that
you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at
night. And it's not because I'm lonely. And it's not because it's
New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you
want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest
of your life to start as soon as possible")
- Sally reacted with a moving mixture of frustration,
longing, loving, wariness and desperation, feeling manipulated, but
she also was gradually melting to him; she responded, after which
they passionately kissed: ("You see. That
is just like you, Harry. You say things like that, and you make it
impossible for me to hate you, and I hate you, Harry. I really hate
you. I hate you");
the camera pulled back after theyy had finally
conquered their doubts over the budding romance born of an initially
platonic friendship years earlier
- after discussing the meaning
of the song Auld Lang Syne, they kissed again as the camera
pulled up and away from them, showing them engulfed by others on
the dance floor as the film concluded
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Elderly Couples
Sally's Fussy Apple Pie Order
Sharing Recurring Sex Dreams
Split Screen High-Maintenance/Low Maintenance Discussion
Their First Instance of Sex - Apres-Sex
4-Way Phone Call
Ending Image at New Year's Eve Party
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