When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

Man: I was sitting with my friend Arthur Cornrom in a restaurant.
It was an cafeteria and this beautiful girl walked in and
I turned to Arthur and I said, "Arthur, you see that girl? I'm going
to marry her, and two weeks later we were married and it's over fifty
years later and we are still married.

(At the university, Harry and Amanda kissing goodbye.)
Amanda: I love you
Harry: I love you
Sally: (clears throat) kmm kmm... Kmm Kmm
Amanda: Oh, hi Sally. Sally, this is Harry Burns.
Harry, this is Sally Allbright.
Harry: Nice to meet you.
Sally: You want to drive the first shift?
Harry: No, you're there already you can start.
Sally: Back's open.
Amanda: Call me.
Harry: I'll call you as soon as I get there.
Amanda: Oh, call me from the road.
Harry: I'll call you before that.
Amanda: I love you.
Harry: I love you.
Sally: (honks) Sorry.
Harry: I miss you already, huh, I miss you already.
Amanda: I miss you.
Harry: Bye.
Amanda: Bye.

(Harry and Sally in the car, on their whay to New York)
Sally: I have it all figured out. It's an eighteen
hour trip which breaks down into six shifts of three hours each
or alternatively we couldb reak it down by mileage.

(Harry climbs to reach for something at the back-seat)
Sally: There's a...there's a map on the huh... visor that
I've marked to show the locations so we can change shifts.
Harry: Grapes?
Sally: No, I don't like to eat between meals.

(Harry spits pits out but the window was shut)
Harry: I'll roll down the window. Why don't you tell
me the story of your life.
Sally: Story of my life?
Harry: We've got eighteen hours to kill before we hit New
York.
Sally: The story of my life isn't even going to get us out
of Chicago I mean nothing's happened to me yet. That's why I'm going
to New York.
Harry: So something can happen to you?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Like what?
Sally: I can go into journalism school to become a reporter.
Harry: So you can write about things that happen to other
people.
Sally: That's one way to look at it.
Harry: Suppose nothing happens to you. Suppose you
lived out your whole life and nothing happens you never meet anybody
you never become anything and finally you die in one of those New York
deaths which nobody notices for two weeks until the smell drifts into
the hallway.
Sally: Amanda mentioned you had a dark side.
Harry: That's what drew her to me.
Sally: Your dark side.
Harry: Sure. Why don't you have a dark side?
No you're probably one of those
cheerful people who dots their eyes with little hearts.
Sally: I have just as much of a dark side as the next person.
Harry: Oh really. When I buy a new book I always read
the last page first that way in case I die before I finish I know how
it ends. That my friend is a dark side.
Sally: That doesn't mean you're deep or anything I mean...
yes, basically I'm a happy person...
Harry: So am I.
Sally: ...and I don't see that there's anything wrong with that.
Harry: Of course not you're too busy being happy.
Do you ever think about death?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Sure you do, a fleeting thought that jumps in and
out of the transient of your mind. I spend hours, I spend days...
Sally: And you think that makes you a better person.
Harry: Look, when the shit comes down I'm gonna be prepared
and you're not that's all I'm saying.
Sally: And in the mean time you're gonna ruin your whole
life waiting for it.

(a while later, still in the car)
Sally: You're wrong.
Harry: I'm not wrong, he wants...
Sally: You're wrong.
Harry: ...he wants her to leave that's why he puts her on
the plane.
Sally: I don't think she wants to stay.
Harry: Of course she wants to stay. Wouldn't you rather
be with Humphrey Bogart than the other guy?
Sally: I don't want to spend the rest of my life in Casablanca
married to a man who runs a bar. I probably sound very snobbish to you
but I don't.
Harry: You'd rather be in a passionless marriage.
Sally: And be the first lady of Czechoslovakia.
Harry: Than live with the man you've had the greatest sex
of you life with, and just because he owns a bar and that is all he does.
Sally: Yes. And so had any woman in her right
mind, woman are very practical, even Ingrid Bergman which is why
she gets on the plane at the end of the movie.

(They pull up to a road side cafe.)
Harry: I understand.
Sally: What? What?
Harry: Nothing.
Sally: What?
Harry: Forget about it.
Sally: For.. What? Forget about what?
Harry: It's not important.
Sally: No just tell me.
Harry: Obviously you haven't had great sex yet.
(Turns to waitress) Two please.
Waitress:: Right over there.
Sally: Yes I have.
Harry: No you haven't.
Sally: It just so happens that I have had plenty of good sex.

(Silence, the whole restaurant looks at Sally. Sally realises
what she had done, walks carefully with a tilted head towards the table.)
Harry: With whom?
Sally: What?
Harry: With whom did you have this great sex?
Sally: I'm not going to tell you that!
Harry: Fine, don't tell me.
Sally: Shel Gordon.
Harry: Shel? Sheldon? No, no, you didn't have
great sex with ... Sheldon.
Sally: I did too.
Harry: No you didn't. A Sheldon can do your income
taxes. If you need a root canal Sheldon's your man,
but humping and pumping is not Sheldon's strong suit.
It's the name. Do it to me 'Sheldon', you're
an animal 'Sheldon', ride me big 'Sheldon'. Doesn't work.
Waitress: Hi, what can I get ya?
Harry: I'll have a number three.
Sally: I'd like the chef salad please with the oil and vinegar
on the side and the apple pie a la mode.
Waitress: Chef and apple a la mode.
Sally: 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.
Waitress: Uh huh.
Sally: What?
Harry: Nothing, nothing. So how come you broke up
with Sheldon?
Sally: How you know we broke up?
Harry: Because if you didn't break up you wouldn't be here
with me, you'd be off with Sheldon the wonder-schlong.
Sally: First of all, I am not *with* you, and second of
all it is none of your business why we broke up.
Harry: You're right, you're right, I don't want to know.
Sally: Well if you must know, it was because he was very
jealous and I had these days-of-the-week underpants.
Harry: (imitates a wrong answer buzzer) uah! I'm sorry
I need a judge's ruling on this...days-of-week underpants.
Sally: Yes. They had the days of the week on them
and I thought they were sort of funny. And then one day Sheldon says
to me, 'You never wear Sunday'.
It's all suspicious, where was Sunday, where was Sunday?
And I told him and he didn't believe me.
Harry: Why?
Sally: They don't make Sunday.
Harry: Why?
Sally: Because of God.

(They've finished eating.)
Sally: (talking to herself) Ok, so fifteen percent of my
share is ninety... six ninety. This leaves seven.
(To Harry) What? Do I have something on my face?
Harry: You're a very attractive person.
Sally: Thank you.
Harry: Amanda never said how attractive you were.
Sally: Well may be she doesn't think I'm attractive.
Harry: I don't think it's a matter of opinion, empirically
you are attractive.
Sally: Amanda is my friend.
Harry: So?
Sally: So you're going with her.
Harry: So?
Sally: So you're coming on to me!
Harry: No I wasn't. What?

(Sally is not impressed, jaw drops, wide eyes)
Harry: Can't a man say a woman is attractive without it
being a come-on?
Alright, alright, let's just say just for the sake of argument
that it was a come-on. What do you want me to do about it? I take
it back, ok? I take it back.
Sally: You can't take it back.
Harry: Why not?
Sally: Because it's already out there.
Harry: Oh gees, what are we suppose to do, call the cops?
It's already out there.
Sally: Just let it lie, ok?
Harry: Great! Let it lie. That's my policy.
That's what I always say, let it lie.
Wanna spend the night at a motel? See what I did? I didn't let it lie.
Sally: Harry.
Harry: I said I wouldn't and I didn't.
Sally: Harry.
Harry: I went the other way.
Sally: Harry.
Harry: What?
Sally: We are just going to be friends, ok?
Harry: Great! Friends! It's the best thing.

(On the road once more)
Harry: You realise of course that we can never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I'm saying is... and this is not a come-on in
any way, shape or form, is that men and women can't be friends
because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That's not true, I have a number of men friends and
there's is no sex involved.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You're saying I'm having sex with these men without
my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I'm saying is they all want to have sex
with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman he finds
attractive, he always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So you're saying that a man can be friends with a
woman he finds unattractive.
Harry: Nuh, you pretty much wanna nail'em too.
Sally: What if they don't want to have sex with you?
Harry: Doesn't matter, because the sex thing is already
out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end
of the story.
Sally: Well I guess we're not going to be friends then.
Harry: Guess not.
Sally: That's too bad. You are the only person I knew
in New York.

(Louis Armstrong breaks into "You say neither, I say....".
They've reached the Big Apple and are unloading Harry's luggage)
Harry: Thanks for the ride.
Sally: Yeah, it was interesting.
Harry: It was nice knowing you.
Sally: Yeah.

(They shake hands)
Sally: Well have a nice life.
Harry: You too.

(Luois is back with the song and it switches to another couple
on a couch)
Woman: We fell in love in high school.
Man: Yeah we were... we were high school sweethearts.
Woman: But then after our junior year his parents moved away.
Man: But I never forgot her.
Woman: He never forgot me.
Man: No, her face is burned on my brain. And it was
thirty four years later that I was walking down Broadway and I saw her
come out of Toffenetti's.
Woman: And we both looked at each other, and it was just
as though not a single day had gone by.
Man: She was just as beautiful as she was at sixteen.
Woman: He was just the same. He looked exactly the
same.

(Sally and Joe kissing in the airport, Harry walked by and saw them.)
Harry: Joe! I thought it was you. I thought it was you. Harry Burns.
Joe: Harry, Harry how're you doing?
Harry: Good, how're you doing?
Joe: I'm...fine, I'm doing fine.
Harry: Yeah, it's great, I was just walking by and I thought
it was you and there it is, it's you!
Joe: Yea, yea, it was.
Harry: Are you still with the DA's office?
Joe: No I switched to the other side, what about you?
Harry: I work with a small firm and we do political consulting.
(sociable laughs all round)
Joe: Oh Harry this is Sally Allbright. Harry Burns.
Ah...Harry and I use to uh...we lived in the same building.
(more sociable laughs)
Harry: Well listen I got a plane to catch, it was really
good to see you Joe.
Joe: You too Harry.
Harry: Bye.
(Sally nods)
Sally: Thank God he couldn't place me, I drove from College
to New York with him five years ago and it was the longest night of my life.
Joe: What happened?
Sally: He made a pass at me and when I said no he was going
with a girlfriend of mine uh... Oh God I can't even remember her name!
Don't get involved with me Joe I am twenty six years old and I can't
even remember the name of the girl I was such good friends with I
wouldn't get involved with her boyfriend.
Joe: So what happened?
Sally: When?
Joe: When... when he made a pass at you and you said no and...
Sally: Oh, oh. I said we could just be friends.
And this part I can remember he said that men and women could never
really be friends.
Do you think that's true?
Joe: No.
Sally: Do you have any women friends, just friends?
Joe: No. But I will get one if it is important to you.
Sally: Amanda Reese, that was her name, thank God.
Joe: I will miss you. I love you.
Sally: You do?
Joe: Yes.
Sally: I love you.

(in the plane, Sally day-dreaming about something)
Air Hostess: And what would you like to drink?
Passenger: Nothing thanks.
Sally: Do you have any Bloody Marry mix?
Air Hostess: Yes.
Sally: Oh wait, here's what I want. Regular tomato
juice, filled up about three quarters than add a splash of Bloody Marry
mix, just a splash, and a little piece of lime, but on the side.
Harry: (from a row behind Sally) The University of Chicago right?
Sally: (looks at Harry, sighs) Yes.
Harry: Did you look this good at the University of Chicago?
Sally: No.
Harry: Did we ever uh...(makes pumping fist gesture)
Sally: No! No! (to man sitting on her right)
We drove from Chicago to New York together after graduation.
Man: Would you two like to sit together?
(Simultaneously...)
Sally: No.
Harry: Great! Thank you.
Harry: You were a good friend of umm...
Sally: Amanda's. I can't believe you can't remember her name.
Harry: What do you mean? I remember, Amanda right?
Amanda Rice.
Sally: Reese.
Harry: Reese, right! That's what I said! What
ever happened to her?
Sally: I have no idea.
Harry: You have no idea? You were really good friends
with her. We didn't make it because you were such good friends.
Sally: You went with her!
Harry: And was it worth it? The sacrifice for a friend
that you don't even keep in touch with?
Sally: Harry, you might not believe this but I never considered
not sleeping with you a sacrifice.
Harry: Fair enough. Fair enough.
Harry: (contd) You were going to be a gymnast.
Sally: A journalist.
Harry: Right, that's what I said. And?
Sally: I am a journalist, I work at the news.
Harry: Great! And you're with Joe. Well that's
great, great. You're together, what, three weeks?
Sally: A month, how did you know that?
Harry: You take someone to the Airport it's clearly the
beginning of a relationship that's why I have never taken anyone to the
Airport at the beginning of a relationship.
Sally: Why?
Harry: Because eventually if things move on and you don't
take someone to the Airport, and I never wanted anyone to say to me,
"How come you never take me to the Airport anymore?"
Sally: It's amazing, you look like a normal person but actually
you're the Angel of Death.
Harry: Are you going to marry him?
Sally: (gasping, lost for words) We have only known each
other for a month and besides neither one of us is looking to get
married right now.
Harry: Hmm, I'm getting married.
Sally: You are?
Harry: Umm hmm.
Sally: *You* are.
Harry: Hmm, yeah.
Sally: Who is she?
Harry: Helen Helson, she is a lawyer, she's keeping her name.
Sally: (laughs) You're getting married.
Harry: Yeah.
Sally: (laughs some more)
Harry: What's so funny about that?
Sally: (laughs even more)
It's a...well...It's just so optimistic of you Harry.
Harry: Well you'd be amazed what falling madly in love can do for you.
Sally: Well it's wonderful, it's nice to see you embracing
life in this manner.
Harry: Yeah plus you know you just get to a certain point
where you get tired of the whole thing.
Sally: What "whole thing"?
Harry: The whole life-of-a-single-guy thing. You meet
someone, you have the safe lunch, you decide you like each other enough
to move on to dinner. You go dancing, you do the white-man's over-bite,
go back to her place, you have sex and the minute you're finished you
know what goes through your mind? How long do I have to lie here and
hold her before I can get up and go home. Is thirty seconds enough?
Sally: (In disgust) That's what you're thinking? Is
that true?
Harry: Sure! All men think that. How long do
you want to be held afterwards? All night, right? See there's your problem,
somewhere between thirty seconds and all night is your problem.
Sally: I don't have a problem!
Harry: Yeah you do.

(Plane lands, Harry and Sally meet again on one of those motorised walkways in the Airport)
Harry: Staying over?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Would you like to have dinner?
(Sally looks over)
Harry: Just friends.
Sally: I thought you didn't believe men and women could
be friends.
Harry: When did I say that?
Sally: On the ride to New York.
Harry: No no no no, I never said that.
(Harry pauses, thinks.)
Yes, that's right, they can't be friends. Unless both of them are involved
with other people then they can. This is an amendment to the earlier
rule, if the two people are in relationships, the pressure of possibilty
of involvement is lifted.
(Pauses)
That doesn't work either because what happens then is the
person you're involved with can't understand why you need to be
friends with the person you're just friends with. Like it means something
is missing from their relationship and "why do you have to go outside
to get it?".
Then when you say, "no no no no, it's not true nothing's missing from
the relationship", the person you're involved with then accuses you
of being secretly attracted to the person you're just friends with, which
we probably are, I mean, come on, who the hell are we kidding, let's face it,
which brings us back to the earlier rule before the amendment which
is men and women can't be friends, so where does that leave us?
Sally: Harry.
Harry: What?
Sally: Goodbye.
Harry: Oh, OK.

(They both start to walk along the motorised walkway, side by side)
Harry: I'll just stop walking, I'll let you go ahead.

(Another old couple on the same couch)
Man: We were married forty years ago. We were married
three years, we got a divorce. Then I married Margerie.
Woman: But first you lived with Barbara.
Man: Right, Barbara. But I didn't marry Barbara I married Margerie.
Woman: Then he got a divorce.
Man: Right, then I married Kitty.
Woman: Another divorce.
Man: Then a couple of years later at Atticalicio's funeral,
I ran into her. I was with some girl I don't even remember.
Woman: Ruberta.
Man: Right, Ruberta. But I couldn't take my eyes off
you. I remember I snuck over to her and I said... What did I say?
Woman: You said, "What are you doing after?"
Man: Right. So I ditched Ruberta, we go for a coffee,
a month later we were married.
Woman: Thirty five years today after our first marriage.

(Three women sitting outdoor at a table in a restaurant, nice view
overlooking water and willow with skyscrapers faintly visible in the distance)

(Five years have passed since Harry and Sally's last meeting)
Marie: I went through his pockets in bed.
Alice: Marie why do you go through his pockets?
Marie: You know what I found?
Alice: No, what?
Marie: They just bought a dinning room table. He and his wife
just went out and spent sixteen hundred dollars on a dinning room table.
Alice: Where?
Marie: Huh... The point isn't where, Alice. The point
is he's never going to leave her!
Alice: So what else is new you've known this for two years.
Marie: You're right, you're right, I know you're right.
Alice: Why can't you find someone single. When I was
I knew lots of nice single men. There must be someone. Sally found someone.
Marie: Sally got the last good one.
Sally: Joe and I broke up.
Alice: What?
Marie: When?
Sally: Monday.

(At the same time)
Alice: You waited three days to tell us?
Marie: You mean Joe's available?
Alice: Oh for God's sakes Marie don't you have any feelings
about this? She's obviously upset.
Sally: I'm not that upset, we've been growing apart for
quite a while.
Marie: But you guys were a couple, you had someone to go
places with, you had a date on national holidays.
Sally: I said to myself, "You deserve more than this, you're
thirty one years old..."
Marie: And the clock is ticking.
Sally: No the clock doesn't really start to tick until you're thirty six.
Alice: God you're in such great shape.
Sally: Well, I've had a few days to get use to it, and uh...
I feel OK.
Marie: Good! Then you're ready.

(Marie reaches down to bring up her card index)
Alice: Oh really Marie.
Marie: Well how else do you think you do it? (To Sally)
I've got the perfect guy. I don't happen to find him attractive but
you might. She doesn't have a problem with chins.
Sally: Marie, I'm not ready yet.
Marie: But you just said you were over him.
Sally: I *am* over him, but I'm in a mourning period.
(Pauses) Who is it?
Marie: Alex Anderson.
Sally: (Disgusted) Uh! You fixed me up with him six years ago.
(Alice giggles)
Marie: Sorry!
Sally: God!
Marie: Alright, wait, here, here we go, Ken Darmen.
Sally: He's been married for over a year.
Marie: Really. (Dog-ears the his card) Married...
Oh wait, wait, wait, I got one.
Sally: Look, there is no point in my going out with someone
I might really like *if* I met him at the right time but who right now
has no chance of being anything to me but a transitional man.
Marie: OK, but don't wait too long. Remember what
happened to David Walsaw? His wife left him and everyone said,
"Give him some time, don't move in too fast."
Six months later he was dead.
Sally: What are you saying? I should get married to
someone right away in case he's about to die?
Alice: At least you could say you were married.
Marie: I'm saying, that the right man for you might be out
there right now, and if you don't grab him someone else will and you'll
have spend the rest of your life knowing that someone else is married
to your husband.

(At a football game)

(We follow the Mexican wave and see Harry and Jess)
Jess: When did this happen?
Harry: Friday. Helen comes home from and she said,
"I don't know if I want to be married anymore." Like it's the institution,
you know, like it's nothing personal, just something she's been thinking
about... in a casual way. I'm calm, I say, "Why don't we take some time
to think about it, you know, don't rush into anything."
Jess: Yeah, right.
Harry: Next day she said she's thought about it, and she
wants a trial separation. She just wants to try it, she says, but we can
still date. Like this is supposed to cushion the blow. I mean I got married
so I can stop dating. So I don't see where we can still date is any big
incentive since the last thing you want to do is date your wife, who's
suppose to love you, which is what I'm saying to you, that's when it
occurs to me that may be...
she doesn't. So I say to her, "Don't you love me anymore?"
You know what she says?
(Jess shakes his head)
Harry: "I don't know if I've ever loved you."
Jess: Ooo that's harsh.
(They partake in the Mexican wave)
Jess: You don't bounce back from that right away.
Harry: Thanks Jess.
Jess: No, I'm a writer, know dialogue and that's particularly
harsh.
Harry: Then she tells me that somebody in her office
is going to South America and she can sub-let his apartment.
I can't believe this, and the doorbell rings, 'I can sub-let his apartment',
the words are still hanging in the air, you know, like in a balloon
attached to a mouth.
Jess: Like in the cartoon.
Harry: Right. So I go to the door, and there were
moving men there. Now I start to get suspicious. I say, "Helen when
did you call these movers?", and she doesn't say anything. So I asked
the movers, "When did this woman book you for this gig?". And they're
just standing there. Three huge guys, one of them was wearing a T-shirt
that says, "Don't mess with Mr. Zero."
So I said, "Helen, when did you make this arrangement?". She says, "A
week ago.". I said, "You've known for a week and you didn't tell me?".
And she says, "I didn't want to ruin your birthday."
(They do the Mexican wave again)
Jess: You're say Mr. Zero knew you were getting a divorce
a week before you did?
Harry: Mr. Zero know.
Jess: I can't believe this!
Harry: I haven't told you the bad part yet.
Jess: What could be worse than Mr. Zero knowing.
Harry: It's all a lie. She's in love with somebody
else, some tax attorney.
She moved in with him.
Jess: How did you find out?
Harry: I followed her, I stood outside the building.
Jess: So humiliating.
Harry: Tell me about it. (Pauses) And do you
know I knew? I knew the whole time that even though we were happy it
was just an illusion and that one day she will kick the shit out of me.
Jess: Marriages don't break up on a count of infidelity.
It's just a symptom that something else is wrong.
Harry: Oh really? Well that symptom is fucking my
wife.
(Marie and Sally in a book store. Second floor)
Marie: So I just happen to see his American Express bill.
Sally: What do you mean you just *happen* to see it?
Marie: Well, he was shaving and... there it was in his briefcase.
Sally: What if he came out and saw you looking through his
briefcase?
Marie: You're missing the point, I'm telling you what I
found. He just spent a hundred and twenty dollars on a new night gown
for his wife. I don't think he's ever going to leave her.
Sally: No one thinks he's ever going to leave her.
Marie: You're right, you're right, I know you're right.

(Marie saw Harry peering at Sally through the top of his book)
Marie: Someone is starring at you in personal growth.
Sally: I know him. You'd like him, he's married.
Marie: Who is he?
Sally: Harry Burns, he's a political consultant.
Marie: He's cute.
Sally: You think he's cute?
Marie: How do you know he's married.
Sally: 'Cos last time I saw him he was getting married.
Marie: When was that?
Sally: Six years ago.
Marie: So he might not be married anymore.
Sally: Also he's obnoxious.
Marie: Uh, this is just like in the movies remember when the lady
vanishes and she says to meet the most obnoxious man in the world....
Sally: The most contemptible.
Marie: And they fall madly in love.
Sally: Also he never remembers me.
Harry: Sally Allbright.
Sally: Hi Harry.
Harry: I thought it was you.
Sally: It is. Huh... this is Marie.
(Marie is already on her way down stairs)
Sally: Was Marie.
Harry: How are you?
Sally: Fine!
Harry: How's Joe?
Sally: Fine. (Pauses) I hear he's fine.
Harry: You're not with Joe anymore?
Sally: We just broke up.
Harry: Oh, I'm sorry, that's too bad.
Sally: Yah...well, you know...yah.
(Long pause)
So, what about you?
Harry: I'm fine.
Sally: How's married life?
Harry: Not so good. I...I'm getting a divorce.
Sally: Oh, sorry. Oh I'm really sorry.
Harry: Yeah, well, what're you going to do. What happened
with you guys?

(Harry and Sally now sitting in a empty restaurant, having coffee)
Sally: When Joe and I started seeing each other we wanted
exactly the same thing. We wanted to live together but we didn't want
to get married because every time anyone we knew got married it ruined
their relationship, they practically never had sex again. It's true.
It's one of those secrets that no one ever tells you. I would sit around
with my girlfriends who have kids... actually this my girlfriend
who has kids, Alice, and she and Garry never did it anymore.
She didn't even complain about it now that I think
about it. She just said it matter-of-fact-ly. She said,
they were up all night, they were both exhausted all the time, the kids
just took every sexual impulse they had out of them.
(Pauses)
Joe and I use to talk about it and we'd say, we are so lucky we have
this wonderful relationship, we can have sex on the kitchen floor and
not worry about the kids walking in, we can fly off to Rome on
a moment's notice. And then one day I was taking Alice's little
girl for the afternoon because I promised I'd take her to the circus,
and, we were in the cab playing eye-spy. Eye-spy mailbox, eye-spy
lamppost. And she looked out the window and she saw this man and this
woman with these two little kids and the man had one of the little kids
on his shoulders and she said, "I spy a family". And I started to cry.
You know I just started crying. And I went home and I said, "The thing
is Joe we never fly off to Rome on a moment's notice.
Harry: And the kitchen floor...
Sally: Not once, it's this cold, hard Mexican ceramic tile.
Harry: Umm.
Sally: Anyway, we talked about it for a long time and I
said, "This is what I want." and he says, "Well I don't." and I said,
"Well I guess it's over." and he left. And the thing is I... I feel
really fine. I am over him, I mean I really am over him. And that was
it for him. That was the most that he could give. And everytime I think
about it I am more and more convinced that I did the right thing.
Harry: Boy you sound really healthy.
Sally: Yah.

(Harry and Sally walking along in a park)
Sally: At least I got the apartment.
Harry: That's what everybody says to me too. But really
what's so hard about finding an apartment? What you do is, you read
the obituary column. Yeah, you find out who died, and go to the building
and then you tip the doorman.
What they can do to make it easier is to combine the obituaries
with the real estate section. Say, then you'd have Mr. Klein died today
leaving a wife, two children, and a spacious three bedroom apartment
with a wood burning fireplace.

(They both sound of genuine laughter)
Harry: You know the first time I met I really didn't like
you that much.
Sally: I didn't like you.
Harry: Yeah you did, you were just so uptight then.
You're much softer now.
Sally: You know I hate that kind of remark. It sounds like a
complement but really it's an insult.
Harry: OK, you're still as hard as nails.
Sally: I just didn't want to sleep with you and you had to write
it off as a character flaw instead of dealing with the possibility that
it might have something to do with you.
Harry: What's the statute of limitation on apologies?
Sally: Ten years.
Harry: Ooo, I can just get it in under the wire.
Sally: Would you like to have dinner with me some time?
Harry: Are we becoming friends now?
Sally: Well... (Pause) yah.
Harry: Great! A woman friend... You know you may be the first
attractive woman I have not wanted to sleep with in my entire life.
Sally: That's wonderful Harry.

(New old couple again)

(They "cross-talk" all the time, they kind of overlaps each other's speech)
Man: We were both born in the same hospital.
Woman: Nineteen twenty one.
Man: Seven days apart.
Woman: In the same hospital.
Man: We both grew up one block away from each other.
Woman: We both lived in tenements.
Man: On the lower east side.
Woman: On Delancey Street.
Man: My family moved to the Bronx when I was ten.
Woman: He lived on Fordham Road.
Man: Hers moved when she was eleven.
Woman: I lived on a hundred and eighty third Street.
Man: For six years she worked on the fifteenth floor as
a nurse where I had a practice on the fourteenth floor in the very same
building.
Woman: I worked for a very prominent neurologist, Dr.
(someone or rather).
We never met.
Man: Never met.
Woman: Can you imagine that?
Man: You know where we met? In an elevator.
In the ambassador hotel in Chicago Illinois.
Woman: I was visiting family. He was on the third
floor I was on the twelve.
Man: I rode up nine extra floors just to keep talking to her.
Woman: Nine extra floors.

(A shot of Harry in the office, looking pathetically at one of
those bobbing toys that seems to dip its head enough to drink from a
glass of water)

(The phone rings, actually the phone is from his apartment as they
go about their bedtime phone conversations)

(We see Harry and Sally each carrying out their everyday life.
Work, shopping etc)

(Voices overs)

(Sally answers the phone)
Sally: Hello.
Harry: You sleeping?
Sally: No, I was watching Casablanca.
Harry: Channel please.
Sally: Eleven.
Harry: Thank you, got it. Now you're telling me you
will be happier with Victor Laszlo than Humphrey Bogart?
Sally: When did I say that?
Harry: When we drove to New York.
Sally: I never said that, I would never have said that.
Harry: Alright, fine. Have it your way.
(Pause)
Have you been sleeping?
Sally: Why?
Harry: 'Cos I haven't been sleeping. I really miss
Helen. May be I coming down with something. Last night I was up at four
in the morning watching "Leave it to Beaver" in Spanish.

(Harry recites some of the Spanish dialogue from Leave it to Beaver).
I'm not well.
Sally: Well I went bed at seven thirty last night.
I haven't don't that since the third grade.
Harry: Well that's the good thing about depression, gets you rest.
Sally: I'm not depressed.
Harry: OK, fine. Do you still sleep on the same side of the bed?
Sally: I did for a while but now I'm pretty much using the whole bed.
Harry: God, that's great. I feel weird when just my legs wanders
over. I miss her.
Sally: I don't miss him, I really don't.
Harry: No even a little?
Sally: You know what I miss? I miss the idea of him.
Harry: May be I only miss the idea of Helen.
No, I miss the whole Helen.
Sally: Mm, last scene.

(We see them both looking at the TV, Casablanca playing)
Harry: Ooo, Ingrid Bergman, now she's low maintenance.
Sally: Low maintenance?
Harry: There are two kinds of women.
High maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally: And Ingrid Bergman is low maintenance?
Harry: In LM, definitely.
Sally: Which one am I?
Harry: You're the worst kind.
You're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance.
Sally: I don't see that.
Harry: 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.
Sally: Well I just want it the way I want it.
Harry: I know. High maintenance.

(Casablanca ends with "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.")
Harry: Mmm, best last line of a movie ever.
Sally: Hmm....
Harry: I'm definitely coming down with something.
Probably a twenty four hour tumour they're going around.
Sally: You don't have a tumour.
Harry: How do you know?
Sally: If you're so worried go see a doctor.
Harry: No, he'll just tell me it's nothing.
Sally: Will you be able to sleep?
Harry: If not I'll be OK.
Sally: What will you do?
Harry: I'll stay up moan. May be I should practice now.
(moans....)
Sally: Goodnight Harry.
Harry: Goodnight.

(Both hang up the phone)

(Sally's light is out)

(Harry keeps moaning... and eventually lights out)

(Harry and Sally walking along the street)
Harry: 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 nine eight from the Canadian, a perfect ten from
the American, and my mother disguised as a East German judge gave me
a five six. Must've been the dismount.
Sally: Well basically it's the same one I've been having
since I was twelve.
Harry: What happens?
Sally: No it's... it's too embarrassing.
Harry: So tell me.
Sally: OK there's this guy.
Harry: What's he look like.
Sally: I don't know he just kind of faceless.
Harry: Faceless guy, OK, then what?
Sally: He rips off my clothes.
Harry: Then what happens?
Sally: And that's it.
(They stop walking)
Harry: That's it? A faceless guy rips off your clothes
and that's the sex fantasies 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.
(Harry pauses, looks away, starts walking again)
Sally: What?
Harry: Nothng.

(They are now inside a building with a very tall ceiling. Museum? Gallery?)

(Harry talking in a funny accent)
Harry: I have decided that for the rest of the day we are
going to talk like this.
Sally: (Plays along) Like this?
Harry: No, please, to repeat after me. Pepper.
Sally: Pepper.
Harry: Pepper.
Sally: (Starting to giggle) Pepper.
Harry: Pepper.
Sally: Pepper.
Harry: Pepper.
Sally: Pepper.
Harry: Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash.
(Sally giggles some more, Harry feeding her the line again)
Sally: Waiter, there is too much pepper...
Harry: On my papricash.
Sally: On my papricash.
Harry: But I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie.
Sally: Oh...no.
Harry: But I would be proud.
Sally: But I would be proud.
Harry: To partake.
Sally: To partake.
Harry: Of your pecan, pieeee....
Sally: Of your pecan, pieeee....
Harry: Pecan pieeee....
Sally: Pecan pieeee....
Harry: Pecan pieeee....
Sally: Pecan pieeee....
Harry: Would you like to go to the movie with me tonight?
Sally: Would you like to go... would, would...
Harry: (Shakes his head) Not to repeat, please, to answer.
Would you like to go to the movie with me tonight?
Sally: (Mouth opened, realises something, accent gone)
Oh, oh. Well I'd love to Harry, but I... I can't.
Harry: (Still with accent) What to you have, a *Hot Date*?
Sally: Well yah, yah.
Harry: (Accent stops) Really?
Sally: Yah, well I... I was going to tell you about it but
I don't know I just... I felt strange about it.
Harry: Why?
Sally: Well because we've been spending so much time together.
Harry: Oh I think it's great that you have a date.
Sally: You do?
Harry: Yeah.
(Sally looks around nervously, may be even a bit struck by the answer.)
Harry: It's that what you're going to wear?
Sally: Yah. Well, I... I don't know, why?
Harry: I think you should wear skirts more.
You look really good in skirts.
Sally: I do?
Harry: Yah.
(Sally is looking around again, this time the reaction is a bit more pleasant)
Harry: You know I have a theory that Hieroglyphics are really
an ancient comic strip about a character named Sphinxie.
Sally: You know Harry I think you should get out there too.
Harry: (With accent now) Oh no I'm not ready.
Sally: You should.
Harry: I would not be good for anybody right now.
Sally: It's time.
(They are in an apartment (I think it's Sally's) unrolling a new
rug into its place.)
Harry: It was the most uncomfortable night of my life.
Sally: Oh. See no, it has to go this way.
The first day back is always the toughest Harry.
Harry: We only had one date.
How do you know it's not going to get worse?
Sally: How much worse can it get than finishing dinner having
him reaching over pull a hair out of my head and starts flossing with
it at the table?
Harry: We're talking dream dates compared to my horror.
It started out fine, she's a very nice person, and we're sitting and
we're talking at this Ethiopian restaurant that she wanted to go to.
And I was making jokes, you know like, "Hey I didn't know that they had
food in Ethiopia? This will be a quick meal. I'll order two empty plates
and we can leave."
(Sally laughed while drinking from a bottle of water)
Harry: Yeah, nothing from her not even a smile. So I down shift
into small talk, and I asked her where she went to school and she said.
"Michigan State", and this reminds me of Helen. All of a sudden I'm in
the middle of this mess of an anxiety attack, my heart is beating like
a wild man and I start sweating like a pig.
Sally: Helen went to Michigan State?
Harry: No she went to Northwestern, but they're both big-ten
schools. I got so upset I had to leave the restaurant.
Sally: Harry I think this takes a long time. It might
be months before we're actually able to enjoy going out with someone new.
Harry: Yah...
Sally: And may be longer, before we're actually able to
go to bed with someone new.
Harry: Oh I went to bed with her.
Sally: You went to bed with her?
Harry: Sure.
Sally: Oh.

(Harry and Jess practising their batting with coin activated pitching machine)
Jess: I don't understand this relationship.
Harry: What do you mean?
Jess: You enjoy being with her?
Harry: Yah.
Jess: You find her attractive?
Harry: Yah.
Jess: And you're not sleeping with her.
Harry: No.
Jess: You're afraid to let yourself be happy.
Harry: Why can't you give me credit for this?
This is a big thing for me. I never had a relationship with a woman
that didn't involve sex. I feel like I'm growing.
Kid: You finish yet?
Harry: Hey I got a whole stack of quarters and I was here first.
Kid: Were not.
Harry: Was too.
Kid: Were not!
Harry: Was too!
Kid: Big jerk!
Harry: Little creep! (To Jess) Where was I?
Jess: You were growing.
Harry: Yeah. It's very freeing. I can say anything to her.
Jess: Are you saying you can say things to her you can't say to me?
Harry: Nah it's just different. It's a whole new perspective.
I get the woman's point of view on things. She tells me about the men
she goes out with and I can talk to her about the women that I see.
Jess: You tell her about other women.
Harry: Yeah. Like the other night. I made love to this woman,
and it was so incredible, I took her to a place that wasn't human,
she actually meowed.
Jess: You made a woman meow?
Harry: Yah. That's the point, I can say these things to her.
And the great thing is, I don't have to lie because I'm not always
thinking about how to get her into bed. I can just be myself.
Jess: You made a woman meow?

(Harry and Sally at a diner)
Sally: So what do you do with these women, you just get
up out of bed and leave?
Harry: Sure.
Sally: Well explain to me how you do it. What do you say?
Harry: You'd say you have an early meeting, early haircut
or a squash game.
Sally: You don't play squash.
Harry: They don't know that they just met me.
Sally: That's disgusting.
Harry: I know, I feel terrible.
Sally: You know I'm so glad I never got involved with you.
I just would've ended up being some woman you had to get up out of bed
and leave at three o'clock in the morning and clean your andirons,
and you don't even have a fireplace. Not that I would noticed.
Harry: Why are you getting so upset? This is not about
you.
Sally: Yes it is. You are a human affront to all women
and I am a woman.
Harry: Hey I don't feel great about this but I don't hear
anyone complaining.
Sally: Of course not you're out of the door too fast.
Harry: I think they have an OK time.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: What do you mean how do I know? I know.
Sally: Because they...
Harry: Yes, because they...
Sally: And how do you know that they really...
Harry: What are you saying, that they fake orgasm?
Sally: It's possible.
Harry: Get outta here!
Sally: Why? Most women at one time or another have faked it.
Harry: Well they haven't faked it with me.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because I know.
Sally: Oh, right, that's right, I forgot, you're a man.
Harry: What is that supposed to mean?
Sally: Nothing. It's just that all men are sure it
never happened to them and that most women at one time or another have
done it so you do the math.
Harry: You don't think that I could tell the difference?
Sally: No.
Harry: Get outta here.
Sally: Ooo...Oh...Ooo...
Harry: Are you OK?
Sally: Oh...Oh god...Ooo Oh God...Oh...Oh...Oh...Oh God...
Oh yeah right there Oh! Oh...Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes...Oh...Oh...
Yes Yes Yes....Oh...Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes...Oh...Oh... Oh...
Oh God Oh... Oh... Huh...

(Sally finishes, looks at Harry and smiles. Harry looks back,
looking a little uneasy)
Lady from another table: I'll have what she's having.

("Winter Wonderland" playing in the background, scenes of Harry
and Sally buying Christmas tree. Switches to them dancing at a New
Year's eve party)
Sally: I like you without your beard, you can see your face.
Harry: Hey it is my face. Woow, dipping you.
Sally: I really want to thank you for taking me out to night.
Harry: Aw don't be silly. The next New Year's eve
if neither one of us is with anybody, you got a date.
Sally: Deal.

(They dance now cheek to cheek)
Sally: See, now we can dance cheek to cheek.
Harry: Mmm.
Sally: Mmm.

(Both of them noticed they are feeling something about this moment.
Just as it was getting a little 'Heavy' we hear...)
Someone: (Out of shot) Hey everybody! Ten seconds till New Year!
Harry: Want to get some air?
Sally: Yah.

(We hear the crowd counting down the seconds, "Seven, six, five,
four, three, two one, Happy New Year!" Couples around fall into embraces
and gave each other New Year kisses. "Auld Lange Syne" is sung by everyone.)
Harry: Happy New Year.
Sally: Happy New Year.
(They kissed, hugged, awkwardly.)

(Another old couple)
Woman: Well, he was the head counsellor and the boys' camp
and I was the head counsellor at the girls' camp, and they had a social
one night, and he walked across the room. I thought he was coming to
talk to my friend Maxine, 'cos people were always crossing rooms to talk
to Maxine. But he was coming to talk to me, and he said...
Man: I'm Ben Small of the Coney Island Smalls.
Woman: At that moment I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon.

(Sally and Marie walking to a restaurant. Harry and Jess doing the same
thing. Harry is introducing Sally to Jess and Sally is introducing
Marie to Harry at a match-making dinner)
Sally: You sent flowers to yourself.
Marie: Sixty dollars I spent on this big stupid arrangement
of flowers and I wrote a card that I planned to leave on the front table
Arthur would just happen to see it.
Sally: What did the card say?
Marie: "Please say yes. Love Jonathan."
Sally: Did it work?
Marie: He never even came over. He forgot this charity
thing that his wife was a chairman of. He's never going to leave her!
Sally: Of course he isn't.
Marie: You're right, you're right, I know you're right.
Where is this place?
Sally: Somewhere in the next block.
Marie: Uh... I can't believe I'm doing this.
Sally: Look, Harry is one of my best friends and you are
one of my best friends and if by some chance you two hit it off then
we could all still be friends in stead of drifting apart the way you
do when you get involve with someone who doesn't know your friends.
Marie: You and I haven't drifted apart since I started seeing
Arthur.

(Sally stops walking, turns to Marie)
Sally: If Arthur ever left his wife and I actually met him
I'm sure that you and I would drift apart.
Marie: He's never going to leave her.
Sally: Of course he isn't.
Marie: You're right, you're right, I know you're right.

(Harry and Jess now)
Jess: I don't know about this.
Harry: It's just a dinner.
Jess: You know I've finally gone to a new place in my life
where I'm comfortable with the fact that it's just me and my work.
If she's so great why aren't you taking her out?
Harry: How many times do I have to tell you, we're just friends.
Jess: So you're saying she's not that attractive.
Harry: No, I told you she *is* attractive.
Jess: Yeah but you also said she has a good personality.
Harry: She *has* a good personality.
(Jess stops walking, turns to Harry, raises his arms in the air)
Harry: What?
Jess: When someone is not that attractive, they're always
described as having a good personality.
Harry: Look, if you would ask me, "What does she look like?"
and I said, "She has a good personality." That means she's not attractive.
But just because I happened to mention that she has a good personality,
she could be either. She could be attractive with a good personality,
or not attractive with a good
personality.
Jess: So which one is she?
Harry: Attractive.
Jess: But not beautiful, right?
(Harry walks away.)

(They are now all at a table in the restaurant. Jess is telling
Sally about writing. Marie is talking with Harry about something to do
with hostages. Both group are not really happening at all. (and I couldn't
be bothered transcripting all those cross-talk.))

(Eventually, they stopped. Long silence. All four looking uncomfortable.)
Sally: Harry, you and Marie are both from New Jersey.
Marie: Really.
Harry: Where are you from?
Marie: South Orange.
Harry: Haddenfield.
Marie: Ah!....
(Silence. Harry and Marie are both holding a polite smile.
Then, nothing. And both turn back to the table, looking blank.)
Harry: So, what are we going to order?
Sally: Well I'm going to start with the grilled riddichio.
Harry: Jess, Sally is a great orderer. Not only does
she always pick the best thing in the menu but she orders it in a way
that the chef didn't even know how good it could be.
Jess: I think restaurants have become too important.
Marie: Mmm I agree. Restaurants are to people in the eighties
what theatre was to people in the sixties. I read that in magazine.
Jess: I wrote that.
Marie: Get outta here.
Jess: No, I did, I wrote that.
Marie: I've never quoted anything from a magazine in my
life, that's amazing, don't you think that's amazing? And you wrote it!?
Jess: I also wrote "Pesto is the quiche of the eighties."
Marie: Get over yourself!
Jess: I did!
Marie: Where did I read that?
Jess: New York Magazine.
Harry: Sally writes for New York Magazine.
Marie: You know that piece had a real impact on me, I mean
I, I don't know that much about writing but...
Jess: Well, well, it spoke to you, and that pleases me.
Marie: I.. I mean I really.. have.. you have to admire people
who can be as... that articulate.

(Harry and Sally simultaneously looked at each other. They
each know what's going on.)
Jess: Nobody has ever quoted me back to me before.

(The four are walking along the street.)
Marie: Oh! I've been looking for a pair of red suede pumps.
(In saying so Marie and Sally are in a place where they can talk, privately.)
Marie: What do you think of Jess?
Sally: Well, eh.
Marie: Do you think you could go out with him?
Sally: I don't know, eh.
Marie: 'Cos I feel really comfortable with him.

(Sally nodding her head, may be subconsciously.)
Sally: You want to go out with Jess.
Marie: If it's alright with you.
Sally: Sure, sure. I'm just worried about Harry.
He's very sensitive, he's going through a rough period and I...
I just don't want you to reject him right now.
Marie: I wouldn't, I totally understand.

(Harry and Jess now.)
Jess: If you don't think you're going to call Marie, do
you mind if I call her?
Harry: No, no.
Jess: Good, good, good.
Harry: But for tonight you shouldn't. I mean Sally's
very vulnerable right now. I mean you can call Marie, that's fine.
But just wait for a week or so, huh? Don't make any moves tonight.
Jess: Fine, no problem, I wasn't even thinking about tonight.

(Sally and Marie walks over to the guys.)
Jess: Well I don't really feel much like walking anymore.
I think I'll get a cab.
Marie: I'll go with you!
Jess: Great! Taxi!

(Jess and Marie hurried into the cab and it drives off, leaving
Harry and Sally alone, again. They turn and look at each a other, a
little bewildered.)

(Another old couple.)
(Woman nods while the man kept talking.)
Man: A man came to me and said, "I found nice girl for you,
she lives in the next village, and she is ready for marriage."
We were not suppose to meet until the wedding, but I wanted to make sure.
So I sneak into her village, hid behind a tree, watch her washing the clothes.
I think if I don't like the way she looks, I don't marry her.
But she look very nice to me. So I said, "OK." to the man. We get married.
We married for fifty five years.

(Four months later...)
(Harry and Sally are out shopping for a gift for Marie and Jess.)

(Harry slam dunks on a toy basketball hoop and said...)
Harry: I have to get this. I have to get this.
Sally: Harry, we're here for Jess and Marie.
Harry: I know, we'll find them something. There's great stuff here!
Sally: We should've gone to the plant store.
Harry: Here, perfect for them.
(Harry puts a helmet on Sally.)
Sally: What's that?
Harry: Battery operated pith helmet, with fan.
Sally: Why is this necessary in life?
Harry: I don't know. (Takes the helmet off Sally's
head.) Look, look at this, it also makes great fries. Oh, O-o, good,
hold off the dogs, the hunt is over. Sally, this is the greatest.
(Harry turns the machine on, now speaking through the microphone.)
Harry: Sally, please report to me. Look at this, this
is the greatest, you're going to love this. This is a singing machine.
Look, you sing the... the lead and it has the backup and everything.
This is from Okalahoma! Here is the lyrics right here.
Sally: "Surrey with the fringe on top".
Harry: Yes, perfect.
(Harry starts to sing.)
Harry: Ooo! Chics and ducks and geese better
scurry. When I take you out in my surrey. When I take you out in my
surrey with a fringe, on top. Now you.
Sally: (With Harry singing along.) Watch that fringe and
see how it flutters. When I drive those high stepping strutters.
Nosy pokes will peek through the shutters and their eyes will pop.
(Sally keeps singing, Harry stopped as he saw something, or someone.)
Sally: The wheels are yellow the upholstery's brown and
the dashboard's genuine leather. With icy glass curtains that will...
(Still on the microphone.) What? It's my voice isn't it? I hate my
voice. I know, it's terrible, Joe hate...
Harry: It's Helen.
Sally: (Still on the microphone.) Helen?
Harry: She's coming right towards me.
(Helen and a man approaches.)
Helen: How are you Harry?
Harry: Fine, I'm fine.
Helen: This is Ira Stod. Harry Burns.
Ira: Harry.
Harry: I'm sorry. This is Sally Allbright.
Helen Hillson and Ira.
Ira: Sally.
Helen: Nice to meet you.
Sally: Hi.
Helen: Well, see you.
Harry: Yeah, bye. Nice to meet you, Ira.
Sally: Are you OK?
Harry: Yah, I'm perfect. She looked weird, didn't she?
She looked really weird, she looked very weird.
Sally: I've never seen her before.
Harry: Trust me, she looked weird. Her legs looked
heavy, really, she must be retaining water.
Sally: Harry.
Harry: Believe me, the woman saved everything.
(They are at a flower shop, Sally holding a bunch of flowers.
Harry is starring into space.)
Sally: Sure you're OK?
Harry: Oh I'm fine. Look it had to happen at some point,
in a city of eight million people you're bound to run into your ex-wife
so boom, it happens, and now I'm fine.
(Harry walks away.)
(They reach Jess and Marie's place. They are looking at a
wagon-wheel coffee table.)
Jess: I like it, it works. It says home to me.
Marie: Alright, alright. We'll let Harry and Sally
be the judge. (To Harry and Sally) What do you think?
Harry: It's nice.
Jess: Case closed.
Marie: Of course he likes it, he's a guy. Sally?
(Sally shakes her head.)
Jess: What's so awful about it?
Marie: It's so awful there's no way even to begin to explain
what's so awful about it.
Jess: Honey, I don't object to any of your things.
Marie: If we had an extra room you could put all of your
things including your bar stools.
Jess: No, honey, wait, wait, wait, honey, honey, wait, wait,
wait... you don't like my bar stools? (To Harry) Harry, come on, someone
has to be on my side.
Marie: I'm on your side, I'm just trying to help you have
good taste.
Jess: I have good taste!
Marie: Everybody thinks they have good taste in a sense
of humour but they couldn't possibly all have good taste.
Harry: You know it's funny. We started out like this,
Helen and I. We had blank walls, we hung things, we picked out tiles together.
Then you know what happens? Six years later you find yourself singing
"Surrey with a fringe on top" in front of Ira!
Sally: Do we have to talk about this right now?
Harry: Yes, I think that right now actually is the perfect
time to talk about this because I want our friends to benefit from
the wisdom of my experience. Right now everything is great, everyone
is happy, everyone is in love, but you got to know, that sooner or later,
you're going to be screaming at other about who's going to get this dish.
This eight dollar dish will cost you a thousand dollars in phone calls
to the legal firm of that's-mine-this-is-yours.
Sally: Harry...
Harry: Please, Jess, Marie, do me a favour for your own
good, put your name in your books right now, before they get mixed up
and you don't know who's is who's. Because one day, believe it or not,
you'll go fifteen rounds over who's going to get this coffee table.
This stupid, wagon wheel, Roy Rogers garage sale coffee table!
Jess: I thought you liked it.
Harry: I WAS BEING NICE!
(Harry walks out.)
Sally: He just bumped into Helen.
(Sally follows.)
Marie: I want you to know, that I will never, want that
wagon wheel coffee table.
(Outside, with Sally trying to talk to Harry.)
Harry: I know I know I shouldn't have done it.
Sally: Harry, you're going to have to try and find a way
of not expressing every feeling that you have, every moment that you
have them.
Harry: Oh really?
Sally: Yes, there are times and places for things.
Harry: Well the next time you're giving a lecture series
on social graces would you let me know, 'cos I'll sign up.
Sally: Hey! You don't have to take your anger out on me.
Harry: Oh I think I'm entitled to throw a little anger your
way, especially when I'm told how to live my life, by Miss Hospital-Corners.
Sally: What's that supposed to mean?
Harry: I mean nothing bothers you! You never get upset about anything!
Sally: Don't be ridiculous!
Harry: What? You never get upset about Joe.
I never see that back up on you.
How is that possible? Don't you experience any feelings of loss?
Sally: I don't have to take this crap from you!
Harry: If you're so over Joe, why aren't you seeing anyone?
Sally: I see people!
Harry: See people, have you slept with one person since
you broke up with Joe?
Sally: What the hell does that have to do with anything?
That will prove that I'm over Joe, because I fucked somebody?
Harry you're going to have to move back to New Jersey because you've
slept with everybody in New York and I don't see that turning Helen
into a faint memory for you! Besides I will make love to somebody when
it is 'making love', not the way you do it like you're out for revenge
or something!
Harry: Are you finished now?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Can I say something?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
(Jess taking out the wagon wheel.)
Jess: Don't say a word.

(New scene, in Jess and Marie's house, a bunch of people playing
pictionary or something similar. Sally is drawing something on the white
board.)
Jess: Uh, it's a monkey. It's a monkey, monkey see monkey do!
It's... an ape, going ape!
Woman: It's a baby!
(Sally points to her.)
Jess: Planet of the apes!
Harry: Planet of the apes? She just said it's a baby.
How about planet of the dopes?
Jess: It doesn't look like a baby.
Harry: Hmm a big mouth... Mick Jagger is a baby!
Jess: Baby ape, baby ape!
Harry: Stop with the apes would you please?
Woman: Uh... baby's breath!
Harry: Rosemary's Baby's mouth! Won't you come home Bill baby!
Woman: Babababy...kiss the baby!
Harry: Melancholy baby's mouth!
Jess: Baba...baby fish mouth, baby fish mouth!
(Out of shot: fifteen seconds.)
Woman: Baby boom!
Jess: Draw something resembling anything.
Woman: Crying baby, kiss the baby.
Harry: Uh...Baby spitting up, exorcist baby!
Woman: Yes sir that's my baby!
Harry: No sir don't mean may be.
(Out of shot: That's it times up.)
Sally: Baby talk.
Jess: Baby talk? What's that, that's not a saying.
Harry: Oh but baby fish mouth is sweeping the nation.
I hear them talking.
Man: Final score, our team one ten, you guys sixty.
Sally: I can't draw.
Julian: Nah, that's baby, and that's clearly talking.
You're wonderful.
Marie: Alright who wants coffee?
Jess: I do and I love you.
Woman: Do you have any tea?
Marie: One tea.
Harry: Industrial strength.
Sally: I'll help you, (To Julian) de-caf?
Julian: Yes.
Marie: Cream.
Woman: Where's the bathroom?
Marie: Through that door down the hall.
Jess: (To Julian) Doesn't look like a baby to me.
Julian: Which part?
Jess: All of it.
Harry: Hey Jess, you were going to show me the cover of your book.
Jess: Oh yeah yeah, it's in the den. Look Julian,
help yourself, have some... more wine or whatever you like OK?
(To Harry)
I like saying it's in the den, it's got a nice ring to it.
(Marie and Sally in the kitchen making coffees.)
Sally: Emily is a little young for Harry don't you think?
Marie: Well she's young, but look what she's done.
Sally: What has she done? She makes desserts.
(Harry and Jess in the den.)
Harry: Did Julian seem a little stuffy to you?
Jess: He's a good guy, you should talk to him, get to know him.
Harry: He's too tall to talk to.
(In the kitchen.)
Marie: She makes thirty six hundred chocolate mousse pie a week.
Sally: Emily is "Aunt Emily"?
(Den.)
Jess: He took us all to a Met game last week, it was great.
Harry: You all went to a Met game together?
Jess: Yeah, but... it was a... last minute thing.
Harry: But Sally hates baseball.
(Kitchen.)
Sally: Harry doesn't even like sweets.
Marie: Julian is great.
Sally: I know, he's grown up.
(Den.)
Jess: Emily is terrific.
Harry: Yeah, of course when I asked her where she was when
Kennedy was shot she said, "Ted Kennedy was shot?"
Jess: No.
(Harry is in bed, reading a new book. Flick to the last page
to read the ending. Phone rings.)
Harry: Hello.
Sally: Are you alone?
Harry: Yeah I was just finishing a book.
Sally: Could you come over?
Harry: What's the matter?
Sally: He's getting married.
Harry: Who?
Sally: Joe.
Harry: I'll be right there.
(Sally opens the door for Harry, she is covered in tears.)
Sally: Hi.
Harry: Are you alright?
Sally: Come on in.
(Harry closes the door behind him.)
Sally: I'm sorry to call you so late.
Harry: It's alright.
Sally: I need a Kleenex.
Harry: OK.
Sally: OK?
(They walk into Sally's bedroom.)
Sally: He just called me up 'wanted to see how you were',
fine. 'How are you?', fine. His secretary's on vacation, everything's
all backed up and he's got a big case to do, blah blah blah. And I'm
sitting on the phone I'm thinking, I'm over him, I really am over him.
I can't believe that I'd ever be remotely interested in any of that.
And then he said I have some news.
She works in his office, she's a paralegal, her name is Kimberley.
(Sob, Sob.) He just met her. She's suppose to be his transitional
person, she's not suppose to be the one. All this time I've been saying
that he didn't want to get married, but the truth is, he didn't want
to marry me. He didn't love me.
Harry: If you could take him back right now, would you?
Sally: No, but why didn't he want to marry me?
What's the matter with me?
Harry: Aw, nothing.
Sally: I'm difficult.
Harry: You're challenging.
Sally: I'm too structured, I'm completely closed off.
Harry: But in a good way.
Sally: No, no, no I drove him away, and I'm going to 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 Chaplain
had babies when he was seventy three.
Harry: Yeah but he was too old to pick them up.
(Sally laughs a little, then turns into sobbing again.)
Harry: Aw... Come here, come here, it's going to be OK.
It's going to be fine, you'll see.
(Sally is sobbing all over Harry's pullover.)
Harry: Oh go ahead, it's not one of my favourites anyway.
It's going to be OK, hmm? You're OK? OK.
(Harry kisses Sally.)
Harry: I'll make some tea.
Sally: Harry, harry, could you just hold me a little longer?
(They start kissing, it didn't stop and yes, it happened.
They are in bed, Sally is wearing a smile, Harry is wearing a blank stare.)
Sally: Are you comfortable?
Harry: Sure.
Sally: Do you want something to drink or something?
Harry: No I'm Ok.
Sally: Well I'm going to get up for some water so it's really
no trouble.
Harry: OK, water.
(Sally goes to get some water. Harry examines Sally's video indexing cards.)
Harry: You have all the video tapes alphabetising on index cards?
(Sally passes Harry the water.)
Harry: Thanks you.
Sally: Do you want to watch something?
Harry: No, not unless you do.
Sally: No, that's OK.
(Sally snuggles into bed.)
Sally: Do you want to go to sleep?
Harry: OK.
(The next morning. Sally is still in bed. Harry is
putting on his clothes about to leave.)
Sally: Where are you going?
Harry: I gotoa go. Gotta go home, I gotta change my
clothes and then I have to go to work and so do you.
But after work I'd like to take out to dinner if you're free, are you free?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Right, I'll call you later.
Sally: Fine.
Harry: Fine.
(Harry kiss Sally on the forehead and leaves. Sally just
watches as he leaves.)
(Now we see Jess and Marie in bed. First Marie's phone rings.)
Jess: Yours.
Marie: Hello.
Sally: I'm sorry to call so early.
Marie: Are you alright?
Jess: I know I would've called at this hour.
Sally: I did something terrible.
Marie: What did you do?
(Jess's phone rings.)
Jess: Now I know who I would call at this hour.
Sally: Uh, it's so awful.
Harry: I need to talk.
Marie: What happened?
Jess: What's the matter?
Sally: Harry came over last night.
Harry: I went over to Sally's last night.
Sally: Because I was upset that Joe was getting married.
Harry: And one thing led to another.
Sally: And before I knew it we were kissing and...
Harry: To make a long story short.
Sally: We did it.
Harry: We did it.
Jess: They did it.
Marie: They did it.
Marie: That's great Sally.
Jess: We've been praying for it.
Marie: You should've done it in the first place.
Jess: For months we've been saying you should do it.
Marie: You guys belong together.
Jess: It's like killing two birds with one stone.
Marie: It's like two wrong's make a right.
Jess: How was it?
Marie: How was it?
Harry: The doing part was good.
Sally: I thought it was good.
Harry: But then I felt suffocated.
Sally: But then I guess it wasn't.
Jess: Jesus I'm sorry.
Marie: No worries.
Harry: I had to get out of there.
Sally: He just diappeared.
Harry: I feel so bad.
Sally: I'm so embarassed.
Jess: I don't blame you.
Marie: That's horrible.
Harry: I think I'm coming down with something.
Sally: I think I'm catching a cold.
Jess: Look it would've been great if it worked out, but
it didn't.
Marie: Ah, you should never go to bed with anyone when you
find out your boyfriend is getting married.
Harry: Who's that talking?
Jess: Who?
Sally: Is that Jess on the phone?
Jess: It's Jane Fonda on the VCR.
Marie: It's Bryant Gumbel.
Jess: Do you want to come over for breakfast?
Marie: Do you want to come over for breakfast?
Harry: No, I'm not up to it.
Sally: No, I feel too awful.
Marie: I... I mean is so early.
Jess: But call me later if you want.
Marie: I'll call you later OK?
Harry: OK bye.
Sally: Bye.
Jess: Bye.
Marie: Bye.
(All hang up their phones.)
Marie: God!
Jess: I know.
Marie: Tell me I'll never have to be out there again.
Jess: You will never have to be out there again.
(Sally putting on make up.)
Sally (Voice over): I'll just say we made a mistake.
(Harry in the shower.)
Harry (Voice over): Sally, it was a mistake.
Sally (Voice over): I just hope I get to say it first.
Harry: (Voice over): I hope she says it before I do.
(Harry and Sally at a restaurant.)
Sally: It was a mistake.
Harry: I am so relieved that you think so too. I'm
not saying last night wasn't great.
Sally: It was.
Harry: Yes, it was.
Sally: We just never should've done it.
Harry: I couldn't agree more.
Sally: I'm so relieved.
Harry: Right.
Sally: Yah.
Waiter: Two mixed green salads.
Harry: It is so nice when you can sit with someone and not
have to talk.
(Sally nods in agreement.)
(Harry and Jess power-walking in a park)
Harry: It's just like most of the time you go to bed with
someone, she tells you her stories, you tell her your stories.
But with Sally and me, we've already heard each other's stories,
so once we went to bed, we didn't know what we were suppose to do, you know?
Jess: Sure Harry.
(Harry and Jess in the street.)
Harry: I don't know. May be you get to a certain point
in the relationship where it's just too late to have sex, you know?
(Marie getting her wedding dress fitted. Sally is sitting
down, watching.)
Sally: Is Harry bringing anyone to the wedding?
Marie: I don't think so.
Sally: Is he seeing anyone?
Marie: He was seeing this anthropologist but...
Sally: What did she look like?
Marie: Thin, pretty, big tits, your basic nightmare.
(Marie turns to Sally with the dress.)
Marie: So, what do you think?
Sally: Oh Marie.
Marie: Tell the truth.
Sally: It's just beautiful.
(At Marie and Jess's wedding. Harry and Sally are best-man
and bridesmaid.)
Priest: We are gathered here today to celebrate the marriage
of Marie and Jess, and to consecrate their vows of matrimony. The vows
they take join their lives, the wine their will share winds all their
hopes together, and by the rings their will wear, they will be known
to all as husband and wife.
Sally: I've never seen her so happy, she's a totally different
person.
Alice: Oh yeah, she is, well... is great, so, what are you
going to do about you?
Alice's husband: Hon, you want to dance?
Alice: Oh yeah, yeah.
Harry: Hi.
Sally: Hello.
Harry: Nice ceremony.
Sally: Beautiful.
Harry: Boy, the holidays are rough. Every year I just
try to get from the day before Thanksgiving to the day after New Years.
Sally: A lot of suicides.
Harry: Hmm.
Waiter: Would you like a ___ with a shrimp?
Sally: Thank you.
Harry: (To waiter.) No. (To Sally.) How have you been?
Sally: Fine.
Harry: Are you seeing anybody?
Sally: Harry.
Harry: What?
Sally: I don't want to talk about this.
Harry: Why not?
Sally: I don't want to talk about it.
Harry: Why can't we get past this? I mean, are we
going to carry this thing around forever?
Sally: Forever? It just happened.
Harry: It happened three weeks ago.
(Sally with a mouth opened, eye-brows stitched.)
Harry: You know a year to a person is like seven years to a dog?
Sally: Yes.
(Harry smiles, shrugs shoulders.)
Sally: Is one of us supposed to be a dog in this scenario?
Harry: Yes.
Sally: Who is the dog?
Harry: You are.
Sally: I am!? I am the dog!?
Harry: Mmm hmm.
Sally: I am the dog!? I...

(Sally walks away, turns around signals Harry to follow.
They walk to a more private place.)
Sally: I don't see that Harry, if anybody is dog, you are
the dog. You want to act like what happened didn't mean anything.
Harry: I'm not saying it didn't mean anything. I am
saying is why does it have to mean everything?
Sally: Because it does! And you should know that better
than anybody because the minute that it happened you walked right out the door.
Harry: I didn't walk out.
Sally: No, sprinted is more like it.
(Sally storms into the kitchen. Harry follows.)
Harry: We both agreed it was a mistake.
Sally: The worst mistake I've ever made.
(They are now in the kitchen.)
Harry: What do you want from me?
Sally: I don't want anything from you!
Harry: Fine. Fine, but let's just get one thing straight.
I did not go over there that night to make love to you, that is not why
I went there. But you looked up at me with these big weepy eyes, don't
go home night Harry, hold me a little longer Harry. What was I supposed to do?
Sally: What are you saying, you took pity on me?
Harry: No, I was...
Sally: Fuck you!

(Sally slaps Harry whole-heartedly, then storms out of the kitchen.
Harry took a moment to absorb what has just happened, then follows.
On stage is Jess and Marie about to make a speech. Harry and Sally have
just arrived from the kitchen.)
Jess: Everybody could I have your attention please?
I'd like to propose a toast to Harry and Sally. To Harry and Sally,
if Marie or I had found either of them remotely attractive, we would
not be here today.

(Applause all around. Somehow the two faces aren't exactly smiling.)
(Harry rings Sally leaving a message on her answering machine.
Sally just got home from a lonely Christmas tree shopping, chooses not
to pick up the phone.)
Harry: Hi, it's me. It's is the holiday season and
I thought I'd just remind you that this is the season for charity and
forgiveness. And although it's not widely known, it is also the season
of grovelling. So if you felt like calling me back, I'd be more than
happy to do the traditional Christmas grovel. Give me a call.
(Harry rings again. Sally is working at home, but lets the machine answer.)
Machine: Hi, I'm not home right now, call you right back.
Harry: If you're there please pick up the phone, I really
want to talk to you. The fact that you're not answering leads me
to believe that you're
a) Not at home.
b) Home, but don't want to talk to me. Or
c) Home, desperately want to talk to me, but trapped under something heavy.
If it's either
a) or c) call me back.
(Sally looks at the machine, feeling something.)
(Harry and Jess buying a hotdog from a street stall.)
Harry: Obviously she doesn't want to talk to me. What
do I have to do, beat her over the head? If she wants to call me she'll
call me. I'm through making a schmuck out of myself.
(Harry is leaving another message on Sally's machine. He
is singing into the phone...)
Harry: If you're feeling sad and lonely, there's a service
I can render. Tell the one who dig you only, I can be so warm and tender.
Call me, may be it's late so just, call me. Don't be afraid to just,
phone moire. Call me and I'll be around... Give me a call.
(Sally picks up the phone.)
Sally: Hi Harry.
Harry: Hello, hi, hi. I, I didn't... know... that
you were... that you were there. What are you doing?
Sally: I was just on my way out.
Harry: Where are you going?
Sally: What do you want Harry?
Harry: Nothing, nothing. I... just called to say I'm sorry.
Sally: OK.
(LONG and awkward silence.)
Sally: I gotta go.
Harry: Wait a second, wait a, wait a second. What
are you doing for New Years? Are you going to the Tyler's party?
'Cos I don't have a date, and if you don't have a date, we always said
that if neither one of us had a date, we could be together for New Years.
And we... could... you know.... why don't...
Sally: I can't do this anymore, I am not your consolation prize.
Goodbye.
(Sally hangs up.)
(New Years Eve. Harry is at home watching TV.)
TV: And here we are once again at the sixteenth annual New
Year Rockin Eve coming to you live from the...
Harry (Voice over): What so bad about this? You got
Dick Clark, that's tradition. You got Mallomars, the greatest cookies
of all time. And you're about to give the Knicks their first championship
since nineteen seventy three.
(Harry misses the basket.)

(At the party. Sally is dancing with some guy. She doesn't look like she is
enjoying herself. He spins her, twirls her, flings her towards Jess and
Marie. "Don't get around much anymore" is playing.)
Sally: I don't know why I let you drag me into this.
(Harry is now walking the empty New Years street.)
Harry (Voice over): This is much better, fresh air, I have
the streets all to myself. Who needs to be at a big, crowded party
pretending to have a good time? Plus this is the perfect time to catch
up on my window shopping. This is good.
(Harry hears laughter, turns and spots a happy couple.)
(Back to the party. Some guy is telling Sally a joke.)
Joker: So the guy says, "Read the card." (laughts.)
(Sally laughs, not really getting the joke. Turns to Marie.)
Sally: I'm going home.
Marie: You'll never get a taxi.
(Sally turns to the joker and laughs again.)
(In the street, Harry is finishes off an ice-cream, throws it in
the bin. Starts to reminisce.)
Harry (Voice over): You realise of course that we can never be friends.
Sally (Voice over): Why not?
Harry (Voice over): What I'm saying... is that men and women
can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally (Voice over): That's not true.
Harry (Voice over): No man can be friends with a woman he
finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally (Voice over): What if they don't want to have sex
with you?
Harry (Voice over): Doesn't matter, because the sex thing
is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is
the end of the story.
Sally (Voice over): Well I guess we're not going to be friends then.
Harry (Voice over): Guess not.
Sally (Voice over): That's too bad. You are the only
person I knew in New York.
("It had to be you" is playing in the backgraound. Harry
starts running to the party. Sally is about to leave the party.)
Sally: I'm going.
Marie: It's almost midnight.
Sally: Well, the thought of not kissing somebody is just...
Jess: I'll kiss you.
(Harry tries to hail a cab but they all ignore him. So he
keeps running.)
Jess: Come one, stay, please.
Sally: Thanks Jess I just, I have to go.
Marie: Oh wait two minutes.
Sally: I'll cal you tomorrow.
(Sally kisses Marie then walks away. Then she sees Harry
arriving, still puffing. Then, Harry sees Sally as well.)
Harry: I've been doing a lot of thinking. And the
thing is, I love you.
Sally: What?
Harry: I love you.
Sally: How do you expect me to respond to this?
Harry: How about you love me too?
Sally: How about I'm leaving.
Harry: Doesn't what I said mean anything to you?
Sally: I'm sorry Harry, I know it's New Years Eve, I know
you're feeling lonely, but you just can't show up here, tell me
you love me and expect that to make everything alright.
It doesn't work this way.
Harry: Well how does it work?
Sally: I don't know but not this way.
Harry: Well 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 looking at me like I'm nuts, I love that
after I spend a 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 Years Eve. I came here tonight because when you realise you want
to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the
life to start as soon as possible.
Sally: 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.
(They kiss and make up.)
Harry: What does this song mean? For my whole life
I don't know what this song means. I mean, 'Should old acquaintance be forgot".
Does that mean we should forget old acquaintances or does it mean if we happen to
forget them we should remember them, which is not possible because we already
forgot them!?
Sally: Well may be it just means that we should remember
that we forgot them or something. Anyway it's about old friends.
(They kiss and make up, once more.)
Harry (Voice over): The first time we met we hated each other.
Sally (Voice over): No, you didn't hate me, I hated you.
And the second time we met you didn't even remember me.
Harry (Voice over): I did too, I remembered you. The
third time we met, we became friends.
Sally (Voice over): We were friends for a long time.
Harry (Voice over): And then we weren't.
Sally (Voice over): And then we fell in love.
(Harry and Sally on the couch this time.)
Sally: Three months later we got married.
Harry: Yeah it only took three months.
Sally: Twelve years and three months.
Harry: We had this... we had a really wonderful wedding.
Sally: It was a, it really was, it was a wonderful wedding.
Harry: Yeah, we had this enormous coconut cake.
Sally: Huge coconut cake, with the, with the... tiers and
this... very rich chocolate sauce on the side.
Harry: Right, 'cos not everybody like it on the cake 'cos
it makes it very soggy.
Sally: Particularly the coconut, soaks up a lot of that
stuff, so you really... it's important to keep it on the side.
Harry: Right.
THE END