When Harry Met Sally
HOW ICONIC IMAGES CAME TO LIFE
THE ORIGIN
It’s not entirely to Hollywood’s credit that the most famous orgasm in film history is entirely fake — within the narrative as well as on set — because it speaks to the general prudishness of mainstream movies. Luckily for us, it’s at least hilarious. When Harry Met Sally’s infamous yet entirely chaste scene was born from a serious concern, as director Rob Reiner approached production on his 1989 romcom — that the audience wouldn’t hear many female insights into heterosexual dating, compared to the steady stream of opinions from Billy Crystal’s Harry. Reiner, along with screenwriter Nora Ephron, became convinced that Meg Ryan’s Sally needed to challenge Harry’s worldview in the same way he had often upended hers.
The one-woman performance that resulted was very much a group effort. Ephron shook Reiner and producer Andrew Scheinman to the core by revealing that women can fake it; according to Ephron, the trio all contributed to the scene.
THE SHOOT
It was actually Ryan who, during a cast reading, suggested shooting the scene in a public location. She came to regret that. Ryan spent the night before the scene was shot at actual New York restaurant Katz’s Deli, going line-by-line through her script, plotting every ooh and aaah. Surrounded by 150 extras, however, she tensed up. “Usually, when you do love scenes in a movie you have to fake it, but at least you have another person faking it with you and the set is closed,” she explained at the time. “You don’t have all those people around.”
Keen to inspire her, Reiner acted out the sort of noises he wanted, and after a reported 26 takes, they nailed it. The capper, of course, is the, “I’ll have what she’s having,” from the woman at the next table: a killer punchline that Crystal suggested. That was delivered by the director’s mother, Estelle Reiner.
Estelle explained that, “Rob came in one day and said, ‘Mom, there’s a great line in the movie and you can do it.’ So I went to New York for the day, recorded it just three times, and I’m thrilled with the result. I knew it would get a very big
laugh. But what pleased me most was that it was a gift from Rob to me.”
THE LEGACY
Since the film was released in 1989, that scene has been lampooned and referenced aplenty, while Estelle Reiner’s line made the American Film Institute’s 100 Years… 100 Movie Quotes list in 2005. And Katz’s Deli, already a landmark, has become a strange place of pilgrimage where people are still recreating the moment. “It happens at least once a week, if not more,” owner Jake Dell has said, “more likely at three in the morning than three in the afternoon. It’s from men, women, people young and old. We’ve seen everyone do it.”
Their advice, if you’re determined to try it, is to go all-out. And maybe get the turkey sandwich on deli rye, half the turkey slices removed. That’s what she was having.
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY IS OUT NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DIGITAL