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In the 1989 movie "When Harry Met Sally," actor
Meg Ryan's loud rendition of a woman faking a climax while
seated at a New York deli stands as one of the most memorable
moments in film history.
Katz's, the deli where the scene took place, is running a
contest on Friday to mark the 30th anniversary of the movie's
release, inviting anyone who wants to "have what she's having"
to sit at the same table in the Lower East Side landmark and
imitate Ryan's famously feigned frenzy.
Popular with New Yorkers since its founding in 1888, the
family-run business specializing in enormous corned beef and
pastrami sandwiches became an international tourist spot after
the film.
Competitors in Katz's contest, whether female, male or
otherwise, will have to record their performances, post the
videos online, and wait for a panel of social media influencers
to pick a winner, to be announced next week, the deli said.
The most famous line in the scene belongs to another deli
customer, a middle-aged woman who watches Ryan's table-pounding
performance in awe and tells a waiter: "I'll have what she's
having."
The line, delivered by director Rob Reiner’s late mother Estelle
Reiner, ranks No.33 in the American Film Institute's list of
all-time top 100 movie quotations, just behind "Round up the
usual suspects" from "Casablanca." (Ranked No.1 was Rhett
Butler's immortal line from "Gone With The Wind": "Frankly, my
dear, I don't give a damn.")
The appeal of Ryan's performance is the way her character
humbles her over-confident companion Harry, played by Billy
Crystal, who insists women never faked orgasms with him.
"It's just that all men are sure it never happened to them and
most women at one time or another have done it, so you do the
math," she says. When Harry insists he surely would have been
able to tell the difference, she begins fake moaning, building
to loud cries of imitation ecstasy.
"Meg Ryan was so convincing - like an ego-busting butcher," Ben
Mankiewicz, a host on the Turner Classic Movies television
channel, told Reuters in an email. "Men everywhere stopped
kidding themselves after experiencing that scene."
For Mankiewicz, what makes the scene work so well is Ryan's
sudden downshift after her moaning ends, when her expression
morphs from one of pure pleasure to a sly "gotcha" smile that
tells Harry that any woman is fully capable of faking it.
"'I got you. And you know I got you. And now you're questioning
every single intimate moment you've ever had,'" Mankiewicz said.
"It's the greatest mic drop in movie history."
(Additional reporting by Alicia Powell in New York; editing by
Bill Berkrot)
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