Transcripted by Yours Truly

A Rob Reiner Film

Harry Burns - Billy Crystal
Sally Allbright - Meg Ryan
Marie - Carrie Fisher
Jess - Bruno Kirby
Joe - Steven Ford
Alice - Lisa Jane Persky
Amanda - Michelle Nicastro

(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.)