When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
July 17, 2019 12:37 AM - Subscribe

During their travel from Chicago to New York, Harry and Sally debate whether or not sex ruins a friendship between a man and a woman. Eleven years later, and they're still no closer to finding the answer.

30th Anniversary: July 12, 1989. Because of God.
posted by rhizome (25 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I really enjoyed his movie, I thought the actors had real chemistry but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the soundtrack. I recall it as the soundtrack that opened my eyes to jazz standards and I have happily gone down that rabbit hole for the past 20 years and loved every second.
posted by alchemist at 5:23 AM on July 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


Man, I loved that soundtrack. I also loved the couple interviews. "Arthur, you see that girl? I am going to marry her!" and "I'm Ben Small. Of the Coney Island Smalls".

Oh well. [wipes off tear]

The couples interviews are here.
posted by M. at 7:17 AM on July 17, 2019 [7 favorites]


"I'm Ben Small. Of the Coney Island Smalls".

"And that's when I knew. I knew the way you sometimes know with a good melon."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:26 AM on July 17, 2019 [11 favorites]


Without this movie I may have never bothered to seek out Katz’s Delicatessen when I was in New York (now multiple times) and missed out on the best pastrami sandwich known to man.
posted by The Gooch at 10:23 AM on July 17, 2019


I have a soft spot for this film (and pretty much everything Meg Ryan was in pre-1995), but the basic premise of sex ruining a friendship makes me depressed for straight folks.
posted by roger ackroyd at 10:47 AM on July 17, 2019 [8 favorites]


I love this movie. I've watched it many, many times, in many different moods. Nora Ephron is so good at the details that make this movie shine. I love the Upper West Side in the late 80s--it makes me nostalgic for my childhood.

The Rewatchables, a podcast by the Ringer, recently did an episode on this movie and it was a fun listen.
posted by CiaoMela at 12:23 PM on July 17, 2019


There's currently a "When Harry Met Sally" one-day special on LearnedLeague, and my plan, having never seen the movie, is to take the quiz based entirely off of things I've read here and listened to on the Rewatchables podcast.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:33 PM on July 17, 2019


I think of this movie whenever "Auld Lang Syne "plays.

Also you want chocolate for the wedding cake, but on the side.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:45 PM on July 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


The original ending is that Harry and Sally meet again after all these years and split AGAIN.

And then Carl Reiner met his wife while making the movie, and they changed the ending. I think the success of the film is you can feel that real love in the movie.

That and baby fish mouth.
posted by miss-lapin at 6:05 PM on July 17, 2019 [5 favorites]


Harry: What happens?
Sally: It's too embarrassing.
Harry: Don't tell me.
Sally: Okay, there's this guy...
Harry: What does he look like?
Sally: I don't know, he's just kind of faceless.
Harry: Faceless guy, okay. Then what?
Sally: He rips off my clothes.
Harry: Then what happens?
Sally: That's it.
Harry: That's it? The faceless guy rips off all your clothes, and that's the sex fantasy you've been having since you were twelve? Exactly the same.
Sally: Well sometimes I vary it a little.
Harry: Which part?
Sally: What I'm wearing.

posted by sallybrown at 6:53 PM on July 17, 2019 [5 favorites]


And then Carl Reiner met his wife while making the movie, and they changed the ending. I think the success of the film is you can feel that real love in the movie.

Rob, not Carl. Carl married his wife in 1943. (she's the "I'll have what she's having" woman)
posted by Chrysostom at 9:20 PM on July 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


The only thing worse than baby fish mouth is getting caught singing "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" IN FRONT OF IRA!!
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:43 PM on July 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


Apparently, that's the correct answer to the question...

What could be worse than Mr. Zero knowing?

Mr Zero knew.
posted by M. at 11:46 PM on July 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


Sally: No, no, no, I drove him away. And I'm gonna be forty.
Harry: When?
Sally: Someday.
Harry: In eight years.
Sally: But it's there. It's just sitting there, like this big dead end. And it's not the same for men. Charlie Chaplin had babies when he was 73.
Harry: Yeah, but he was too old to pick them up.
posted by wellred at 5:52 AM on July 18, 2019 [6 favorites]


In case anyone was wondering, I got 9/12 questions right and scored in the 80th percentile, despite my only knowledge of the film being from a podcast episode and a single FanFare post. The questions I missed were:

-Nora Ephron's first Oscar nomination.
-What "baby fish mouth" was actually referring to.
-The cowboy Harry invokes when insulting the wagon wheel coffee table. (I said "Will Rogers"; it was Roy.)

So, thanks!
posted by kevinbelt at 11:41 AM on July 18, 2019


Two words: Carrie Fisher.

"I've been looking for a red suede pump" has been my go-to conversational segue since 1989
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 2:30 PM on July 18, 2019 [9 favorites]


“It’s Bryant Gumbel.”
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:48 PM on July 18, 2019 [1 favorite]


That taxi scene is one of the smoothest plot turns I can think of.
posted by rhizome at 6:30 PM on July 18, 2019 [4 favorites]


In case anyone was wondering, I got 9/12 questions right and scored in the 80th percentile, despite my only knowledge of the film being from a podcast episode and a single FanFare post.

I think you would get even more fun out of it if you now let yourself watch the movie. I really think it's worth watching even for the music alone.
posted by M. at 1:58 AM on July 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


I do love this movie, but the turn of Harry right after they sleep together being a deer in the headlights always was weird to me. It happens, like, instantly, as opposed to a few relationshipy things setting in and having the existential dread happen because of them.

Maybe he's just flash-forwarding and expecting that because she cuddles him? I have to watch it again as more of an adult.
posted by knownassociate at 3:27 PM on July 19, 2019 [3 favorites]


I think it's pretty in character for Harry to behave how he does. He's pretty terrified of real intimacy particularly after the departure of Helen. So yeah having sex with someone he was already super emotionally intimate with would freak him out immediately after the endorphins wore off.
posted by miss-lapin at 7:25 AM on July 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I agre with miss-lapin.... I think he is savvy enough to realize pretty instantly that he cannot default to his standard set of post-hookup behaviors. "It's SALLY, FFS! I can't just get up and leave. I can't 'forget to call her.' I can't do anything I usually do. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?"

All this is what I see in his face in that moment, when the camera pans from her blissful face to his deer-in-headlights one.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:46 AM on July 21, 2019 [3 favorites]


It's a sign of the impact of this movie that I skimmed right down to the end of the comments.
posted by chavenet at 11:02 AM on July 23, 2019 [2 favorites]


There's an anecdote I've heard from when they were filming the Katz Deli scene. For a few of the early takes, Meg Ryan's faked orgasm was fine, but a little...reserved. Rob Reiner cut and approached the table to give some direction, and during the discussion, Meg asked something like "well how loud and carried away do you want me to get?"

And Rob Reiner showed her the kind of all-out, yelling-and-screaming, no-holds-barred fake orgasm he wanted, and then when he stopped and looked back down at her, suddenly he froze, his face going white. "I totally forgot," he whispered to Meg and Billy Crystal, "my mother was sitting RIGHT BEHIND ME while I was doing that."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:56 PM on July 23, 2019 [3 favorites]


Oh hey here's Billy Crystal telling that story with more accuracy than I did.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:59 PM on July 23, 2019 [2 favorites]


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