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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)
- the roadside cafe scene of fussy Sally ordering apple
pie and ice cream during a 1977 car trip from Chicago to NYC: ("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." Waitress: "Not even the pie?" Sally:
"No, just the pie. But then not heated")
- 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 crowded New York deli-restaurant scene of Sally's
fully-clothed, simulated orgasm with table-beating and ecstatic moans
and gasps ("Ooooh. Oh, God. Oooooh. Oh God!..."), 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"
- the scene of the simultaneous, split-screen four-way
phone call, 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 ("...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")
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