by Nora Ephron
INT. SALLY’S APARTMENT—DAY
Sally, not picking up.
HARRY’S VOICE (CONT’D) (on answering machine) … home, desperately want to talk to me but trapped under something heavy. If it’s (a) or (c), call me back.
The phone CLICKS off. HOLD on Sally.
CUT TO:
EXT. STREET—HOT DOG STAND—DAY
Harry and Jess are stopped at a hot dog stand.
HARRY Obviously she doesn’t want to talk to me. What do I have to do? Get hit over the head? If she wants to call me, she’ll call me. I’m through making a schmuck out of myself.
CUT TO:
INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY
Harry singing on the phone. The backup MUSIC machine is going.
HARRY (singing) “If you’re feeling sad and lonely, There’s a service I can render …
INT. SALLY’S APARTMENT—DAY
Sally is getting ready to leave. She glances at her machine as she hears:
HARRY’S VOICE (CONT’D) (singing, on answering machine) “… Tell the one who digs you only, I can be so warm and tender—Call me, maybe it’s late but just Call me …”
INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY
HARRY (CONT’D) (singing into the phone) “Don’t be afraid to just Phone moi …”
INT. SALLY’S APARTMENT—DAY
HARRY’S VOICE (CONT’D) (singing on answering machine) “Call me and I’ll be around.”
Sally just stares.
INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY
HARRY (CONT’D) (into phone, speaking) Give me a call.
He switches off the song machine
SALLY (through filter) Hi, Harry.
INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY
HARRY Hello! Hi, hi! I didn’t think that you would … that you were there.
INT. SALLY’S APARTMENT—DAY
HARRY (through filter) What are you doing?
SALLY I was just on my way out.
HARRY (through filter) Where are you going?
SALLY What do you want, Harry?
INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY
HARRY Nothing. Nothing, I just called to say I’m sorry.
INT. SALLY’S APARTMENT—DAY
SALLY Okay.
She waits for him to seize the moment. Which he doesn’t.
INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY
He doesn’t know what else to say.
INT. SALLY’S APARTMENT—DAY
SALLY I gotta go.
INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY
HARRY Wait a second … wait a second. What are you doing for New Year’s? Are you going to the Tylers’ party? ’Cause 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 …
INT. SALLY’S APARTMENT—DAY
HARRY (through filter) … we could be together for New Year’s, and …
SALLY Harry, I can’t do this anymore. I am not your consolation prize. Goodbye.
She hangs up.
INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY
Harry stands there, listening to the DIAL TONE.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN:
INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—NIGHT
A tight shot, on television, of DICK CLARK.
DICK CLARK (on television) And here we are, once again, the sixteenth annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, coming to you live from the heart …
We PULL BACK TO REVEAL
Harry lying in bed eating Mallomars and watching Dick Clark on television.
HARRY (Voice-over) What’s so bad about this? You have Dick Clark, that’s tradition, you have Mallomars, the greatest cookie of all time, and you’re about to give the Knicks their first championship since 1973.
Harry aims a toy basketball at a plastic basket mounted on the wall.
He misses.
He looks back at the television set.
CUT TO:
INT. NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY—NIGHT
A great big New Year’s Eve party, just like the one we were at a year earlier. The mirrored ball is twirling. Twinkly lights on everyone’s face.
Sally dancing with a tall man. He dips her. She’s appalled. Upright again, she catches Marie’s eye as the tall man swoops her about the floor. Marie is dancing with Jess.
SALLY I don’t know why I let you drag me to this.
And she’s yanked out of frame.
CUT TO:
EXT. STREET—STOREFRONTS—NIGHT
Harry walks along an empty street.
EXT. DOWNTOWN STREET—NIGHT
Harry walking down the street past shop windows.
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.
He sees a couple across the street standing with their arms around each other in front of a store window. The woman laughs.
CUT TO:
INT. NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY—NIGHT
Sally is leaning against a pillar facing a MAN AT THE PARTY, who is telling her a joke.
MAN AT THE PARTY So the guy says, “Read the card.”
Sally leans around the pillar toward Marie, who’s on the other side.
SALLY (CONT’D) I’m going home.
MARIE You’ll never get a taxi.
CUT TO:
EXT. WASHINGTON SQUARE—NIGHT
Harry is walking along the same place he was dropped off by Sally eleven years ago. He has an ice-cream cone. He dumps the ice cream in a trash can. He stops and looks up at the Washington Square Arch.
HARRY (Voice-over Flashback) You realize, of course, that we could never be friends.
FLASHBACK—DAY
At the Square under the Arch, Sally and Harry are at the back of her car, facing each other. Sally extends her hand to Harry.
SALLY (Voice-over Flashback) Why not?
Harry shakes Sally’s hand.
HARRY (Voice-over Flashback) What I’m saying … is that men and women …
FLASHBACK—DAY
Sally and Harry in the airplane.
HARRY (Voice-over Flashback) (CONT’D) … can’t be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way.
FLASHBACK—DAY
Harry and Sally walking down the street.
SALLY (Voice-over Flashback) That’s not true.
HARRY (Voice-over Flashback) No man can be friends with …
FLASHBACK—DAY
Harry and Sally walking in the park.
HARRY (Voice-over Flashback) (CONT’D) … a woman he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
FLASHBACK—DAY
Harry and Sally in the museum—she is laughing.
SALLY (Voice-over Flashback) What if they don’t want to have sex with you?
HARRY (Voice-over Flashback) Doesn’t matter …
FLASHBACK—DAY
Harry and Sally in deli, when Sally is faking an orgasm as other customers look on.
HARRY (Voice-over Flashback) (CONT’D) … because the sex thing is already out there, so the friendship is ultimately doomed …
FLASHBACK—NIGHT
Harry and Sally kissing in her bedroom.
HARRY (Voice-over Flashback) (CONT’D) … and that is the end of the story.
SALLY (Voice-over Flashback) Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends, then.
HARRY (Voice-over Flashback) Guess not.
SALLY (Voice-over Flashback) That’s too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.
EXT. WASHINGTON SQUARE—NIGHT
Harry back in reality. Thinking about what just happened in his mind. He feels the cold and turns his collar up, then starts walking slowly away from the Arch. We stay with Harry as his pace starts to quicken and finally ends with him running down the street.
CUT TO:
INT. NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY—NIGHT
It’s almost midnight. Balloons, confetti, the mirrored ball
spinning slowly around.
The excitement in the room builds as we approach midnight. We see Sally standing alone in the crowd.
She decides to leave. She makes her way to Jess and Marie.
CUT to:
EXT. STREET—NIGHT
Harry running.
CUT TO:
INT. NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY—NIGHT
SALLY (going for her coat) I’m going.
MARIE It’s almost midnight.
SALLY The thought of not kissing somebody is just …
JESS I’ll kiss you.
CUT TO:
EXT. STREET—NIGHT
Harry is looking for a cab. He can’t find one. He keeps running.
CUT TO:
INT. NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY—NIGHT
JESS C’mon, stay. Please.
SALLY Thanks, Jess. I just … I have to go.
MARIE Oh, wait two minutes.
SALLY I’ll call you tomorrow.
They kiss each other on the cheek, and Sally heads off.
CUT TO:
EXT. STREET—NIGHT
Harry runs along the street, rounds the corner, and runs into the hotel and through the lobby.
CUT TO:
INT. NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY—NIGHT
Sally is making her way through the crowd when she stops dead in her tracks. It’s Harry. Slowly he comes toward her and stops in front of her.
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.
Sally turns and walks off, parting the crowd. Harry follows her like a terrier.
HARRY Doesn’t what I said mean anything to you?
Sally stops and turns to face him. During the following, we hear the COUNTDOWN to the New Year, after which everyone breaks into “HAPPY NEW YEAR,” confetti flies, everyone is kissing and breaking into “AULD LANG SYNE.”
SALLY I’m sorry, Harry. I know it’s New Year’s Eve, and I know you’re feeling lonely, but you just can’t show up here, tell me you love me, and expect to make everything all right. It doesn’t work that way.
HARRY Well, how does it work?
SALLY I don’t know, but not this way.
Sally turns to go, but Harry grabs her, stopping her.
HARRY How about this way? I love how 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 right there when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you’re the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely. And it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
SALLY (furious) 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.
Harry puts his arms around her.
They kiss.
A long kiss.
The twinkle ball goes around, twinkling
They go on kissing.
“AULD LANG SYNE” continues in the background.
HARRY What does this song mean? My whole life, I have never known 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 happened to forget them, we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot them?
SALLY Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that we forgot them or something. Anyway, it’s about old friends.
They start to kiss again.
And as the camera PULLS UP away from them:
HARRY (Voice-over) The first time we met we hated each other.
SALLY (Voice-over) You didn’t hate me, I hated you. (beat) And the second time we met, you didn’t even remember me.
HARRY (Voice-over) I did too, I remembered you. (a long beat) 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.
CUT TO:
A COUPLE ON A LOVE SEAT
HARRY and SALLY together.
SALLY Three months later we got married.
HARRY It only took three months.
SALLY Twelve years and three months.
HARRY We had this … really wonderful wedding.
SALLY It really was.
HARRY It was great. We had this enormous coconut cake.
SALLY Huge coconut cake with the tiers, and there was this very rich chocolate sauce on the side.
HARRY Right. Because not everybody likes it on the cake, because it makes it very soggy.
SALLY Particularly coconut. It soaks up a lot of that stuff. It’s important to keep it on the side.
HARRY Right …
And as they continue on, we—
FADE OUT.
THE END
Nora Ephron is the author of the huge bestseller I Feel Bad About My Neck as well as Heartburn, Crazy Salad, Wallflower at the Orgy, and Scribble Scribble. She recently wrote and directed the hit movie Julie & Julia and has received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay for When Harry Met Sally, Silkwood, and Sleepless in Seattle, which she also directed. Her other credits include the current stage hit Love, Loss, and What I Wore. She lives in New York City with her husband, writer Nicholas Pileggi.
BOOKS BY NORA EPHRON
FICTION
Heartburn
ESSAYS
I Feel Bad About My Neck
Nora Ephron Collected
Scribble Scribble
Crazy Salad
Wallflower at the Orgy
DRAMA
Imaginary Friends
SCREENPLAYS
Bewitched (with Delia Ephron)
Hanging Up (with Delia Ephron)
You’ve Got Mail (with Delia Ephron)
Michael (with Jim Quinlan, Pete Dexter, and Delia Ephron) (with Delia Ephron)
Sleepless in Seattle (with David S. Ward and Jeff Arch)
This is My Life (with Delia Ephron)
My Blue Heaven
When Harry Met Sally . . .
Cookie (with Alice Arlen)
Heartburn
Silkwood (with Alice Arlen)
ALSO BY NORA EPHRON
HEARTBURN
Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has “a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs” is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron’s irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-76795-4
I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK
Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. She hates her chaotic mess of a purse. She searches for the divinely flaky cabbage strudel of her youth and finds it 23 years later. She endures the daily tribulations of feminine maintenance: removing unwanted hair, moisturizing patches of skin the consistency of a loofah, and recovering from treadmill injuries. Utterly courageous, uproariously funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth-telling, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book, full of laugh-out-loud moments that will appeal to readers of all ages.
Humor/Essays/978-0-307-27682-7
IMAGINARY FRIENDS
Although Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy probably only met once in their lives
, their names will be linked forever in the history of American literary feuds: they were legendary enemies, especially after McCarthy famously announced to the world that every word Hellman wrote was a lie, “including ‘and’ and ‘the’.” The public battle and the legal squabbling that ensued ended, unsatisfactorily for all, with Hellman’s death. Ephron brilliantly resuscitates these two bigger-than-life woman to give them a post-mortem second act, and the chance to really air their differences.
Fiction/Literature/978-1-4000-3422-2
VINTAGE BOOKS
Available at your local bookstore, or
visit www.randomhouse.com
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
Copyright © 1990 by Castle Rock Entertainment
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
MCA Music Publishing: Excerpts from “Call Me.”
Words and music by Tony Hatch.
Copyright © 1965, 1970 by Duchess Music Corporation, 1755 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Rights administered by MCA Music Publishing, a Division of MCA Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Williamson Music Co.: Excerpts from “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” (from Oklahoma) by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.
Copyright 1943 by Williamson Music Co. Copyright renewed.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ephron, Nora.
When Harry met Sally— / Nora Ephron.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-76594-9
I. Title.
PN1997.W466 1990
791.43′72—dc20 89-43595
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