Because I know.
SALLY
Oh right.
(sets her sandwich down)
That’s right. I forgot. You’re a man.
HARRY
What’s that supposed to mean?
SALLY
Nothing. It’s just that all men are sure it never happens to them, and most women at one time or another have done it, so you do the math.
HARRY
You don’t think I can tell the difference?
SALLY
No.
HARRY
Get outta here.
HARRY bites into his sandwich. SALLY just stares at him. A seductive look comes over her face.
SALLY
Oooh!
HARRY, sandwich in hand, chewing his food, looks up at SALLY.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Oh! Oooh!
HARRY
Are you okay?
SALLY, her eyes closed, ruffles her hair seductively.
SALLY
Oh God!
HARRY is beginning to figure out what SALLY is doing.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Oooh! Oh God!
SALLY tilts her head back.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Oh!
Her eyes closed, she runs her hand over her face, down her neck.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Oh, my God! Oh yeah, right there.
HARRY looks around, noticing that others in the deli are noticing SALLY. She’s really making a show now.
SALLY (CONT’D)
(gasps)
Oh!
A man in the background turns to look at her.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Oh! Oh!
(gasps)
Oh God! Oh yes!
HARRY, embarrassed, looks at her in disbelief.
SALLY (CONT’D)
(pounding the table with both hands)
Yes! Yes! Yes!
HARRY looks around, very embarrassed, smiles at customers. An OLDER WOMAN seated nearby stares.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Yes! Yes!
By now, the place is totally silent and everyone is watching.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Yes! Oh!
(still thumping table)
Yes, yes, yes!
SALLY leans her head back, as though experiencing the final ecstatic convulsions of an orgasm.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Yes! Yes! Yes!
She finally tosses her head forward.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Oh. Oh. Oh.
SALLY sinks down into her chair, tousling her hair, rubbing her hand down her neck to her chest.
SALLY (CONT’D)
Oh, God.
Then suddenly, the act is over. SALLY calmly picks up her fork, digs into her coleslaw, and smiles innocently at HARRY.
A WAITER approaches the OLDER WOMAN to take her food order. The woman looks at him.
OLDER WOMAN
I’ll have what she’s having.
FADE OUT.
What you cannot imagine now is the shock value of that scene. Yes, huge laughs, all that, but people simply could not believe that Meg Ryan FAKED AN ORGASM! When people talked about the flick, there was the usual have you seen? and then the bleed into didn’t you love? and from there, quickly, could you believe it? And then the babble babble babble, is it true?
For those who could not resist this book because of my justly famous writings on sex in the twentieth century, here is what a famous therapist told me: Yes, all women do, and should. (To make the man feel, well, more manly, or when they are tired and want to get to sleep quickly.) Also, yes, all women deny they have ever done such a thing. They will admit they have heard of such behavior, perhaps even some of their friends have done it, but, no, they have not. And, alas, no, men cannot tell. Sorry, guys, no matter how magnificent our studliness, we cannot tell. The only change in a woman is this: for reasons known only to God, there is a slight rise in the temperature of the roof of her mouth. (Who else but me and Suzy tell you these things?) And if you can figure out how to measure that, I don’t know what it is you’re interested in, but it sure isn’t sex.
One of the most unusual things about the scene is this: it ends on the biggest laugh of all, the Billy Crystal–inspired line, spoken by Rob Reiner’s mom, Estelle, “I’ll have what she’s having.” (Crystal is also responsible for one of my favorite lines in The Princess Bride. Miracle Max and his wife have just made this gigantic chocolate-covered miracle pill to bring Westley, the hero, back to life, and then they say that Westley shouldn’t go swimming for at least a good hour.)
Love that.
Which is not to say I like it a whole lot when performers ad-lib over my lines. Because few do it well. Most suck. I am more aware than you are of my limitations, but I am a waaaay better writer than just about any actor you can mention (just as they outclass me in their discipline).
The problem comes when the star decides to ad-lib. Actually, this is as much the director’s problem as mine, since hopefully I am not on the set. But if the director forces a smile and encourages the star, guess what—
—the star, feeling loved, which is all he wants to feel, will ad-lib forever. And if the director squelches the star, guess what—the star may well soon be sulking in a nearby trailer.
As you must realize by now, screenplays are not just dialogue. So does it matter, really, if a star misbehaves? Just to us, mainly. But there is nothing, spelled n-o-t-h-i-n-g, that a writer can do about it.
Most comedy scenes reach a peak somewhere in the middle and then it’s a race to try and get out fast. The orgasm scene in Harry builds, then builds some more, and then takes off.
Clearly, Ephron and the Farrellys write in somewhat different styles; overall, she relies more on wit, they are more at ease with physical comedy. But both these scenes have one crucial thing very much in common—
—the core of the comedy is based on embarrassment. A great deal of the laughter comes from the figure who is really doing nothing. Billy Crystal just sits there, first confused, then intrigued, then stunned at Meg Ryan’s behavior. Ben Stiller gets huge laughs just standing, huddled, facing the corner of the bathroom as nightmares swirl all around him.
One of the reasons these are classic screenwriting scenes has to do with the skill of the writers in making those moments play so strongly. The funny moments shout out at you when you read the scenes. I think one of the reasons I admire these scenes so much is that I can’t write them. There are occasionally funny things in Butch and The Princess Bride, but I did not set out to write a comedy scene. The laughs happened to be there.
I wish I could write funny, I think we all wish we could, but when I read stuff like this, here’s what I think: Thank God somebody can.
* * *
Spitballing
People who know me well are well aware that my view of myself is less than Olympian. There are certain fields in which I can and do hold my own. No one is a greater sports nut, for example. (Not counting hockey.) Few are more passionate eaters. I will give anyone you know a run on their love for red wine. (Provably so—what other wine aficionado has written as big a disaster as your correspondent? viz: The Year of the Comet.)
But what I do better than anyone else on earth is spitball.
If you are a young screenwriter and for some reason unfamiliar with the term, write it down. You will be doing it for the rest of your life. It is possible to spitball on the phone, by e-mail, etc. But it is my view that it is best done in person. And it should not be done in a hurry. Spitballing sessions should run, at the least, several hours.
Spitballing is this: two or more people trying to find a story.
It’s understood that the writer, the one who is drowning, is trying to tell a tale that at present is just lying there like toothpaste. Inert, barely breathing.
There is almost nothing better for me than when another writer, in agony of course, helpless of course, comes to me and we spitball. I t
ell you, I am sublime at such moments.
Now, when I am the one in trouble, all sublimity goes out the window. For one of the sad truths about the act is that you may be a whiz when the problems belong to others; nevertheless, you are totally helpless when they are your own. That is true for all of us—we are trapped in our own skins.
I guess it’s like group therapy, which I did for years, and loved—what a joy to be able to say to another tormented soul, “Ed, Ed, don’t you see, this girlfriend who is killing you is exactly the same as all the others. They just change hair colors.” But when their visions are turned on you—“Jesus, Bill, this one is exactly the same kind of crazy destructive bitch as they all are”—you are stunned at the revelation.
There is only one rule to spitballing, and it is crucial: you must be able to suggest anything and make a total asshole of yourself at all times, secure in the knowledge that no one outside the room will ever know.
I remember once being in an office with a studio guy and a couple of people were sitting around, fighting the story. And one of the people said this: “What if they’re all women?” Now the story, as I remember, was a male adventure flick. And this studio guy commented on that—“This is an adventure movie here, how stupid a suggestion is that?” Naturally the writer was finished for that day.
The truth?
It was a great spitballing notion, and the studio guy—gasp of surprise, right?—was the asshole.
Because making them all women opened up the world. I use it myself a lot now. Or what if the story is about a high-tech robbery and you suggest that it take place a hundred years ago? What if we make it a tragedy instead of the comedy we’re stuck on?
What those ideas do, of course, is this: they make you think about why they are wrong. You have to defend and explain. And sometimes, out of one weird spitballing idea comes another idea that is also weird but less so, and then out of some divine blue, someone is shouting, “No, no, listen to me, I’ve got it—listen to me—”
—and there it is, the spine of the story, with all the sludge ripped away. You can see it and it’s going to be such a great movie you wouldn’t believe it. At its best, what spitballing does is give you the illusion that just this once you have slain hunger and beaten death.
One final note: I have never in forty-six years of writing used the word “viz” before. I don’t even know if I used it correctly—I was coming to the end to the first paragraph and there it was, buzzing around, so I put it in. And I promise you this: Even if it is wrong, I won’t change it, no matter what the copyeditor says …
* * *
North by Northwest
by Ernest Lehman
* * *
My first trip to Hollywood for work was in 1965, when Harper went into production. I remember a lot of things from the experience (see Adventures in the Screen Trade), but one particular moment stands out.
A trim figure had come onto the set whom I did not know, but there seemed to be great goodwill in his being there—a lot of people flocked around. I had no idea who it was till, believe it or not, one of the camera crew said this: “That’s Ernie Lehman the screenwriter—even his flops are hits.”
We later met, became friends. But I never quite forgot the words of the camera guy. Because in that land of horseshit hyperbole, his remarks about Lehman were, if anything, an understatement. Here is what Lehman wrote from 1954 through 1966:
1954 Executive Suite
1954 Sabrina
1956 The King and I
1956 Somebody Up There Likes Me
1957 The Sweet Smell of Success
1959 North by Northwest
1960 From the Terrace
1961 West Side Story
1963 The Prize
1965 The Sound of Music
1966 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Amazing to me, still now. It may be unmatched in Hollywood history, maybe in any discipline. Because these weren’t just, some of them, insanely commercial films, they were honored, fifty-some nominations in all, four flicks up for Best Picture, two of them won. More than that, most of them are good.
Even more incredible than the success are the screenwriting Oscars. Think a moment before you take your shot. How many wins? Go over the list and concentrate.
Zeee-ro.
Sabrina lost to The Country Girl; Somebody Up There Likes Me didn’t get a nomination, but it would have lost to The Red Balloon; North by Northwest lost to, wait for it—Pillow Talk (barf). But my favorite is West Side Story, which got eleven nominations, won ten Oscars. (Guess which one it didn’t win.)
He was nominated, sure, and he won a bunch of Writers Guild Awards, but I’m still pissed for him.
North by Northwest, briefly, is a mistaken-identity flick. Cary Grant plays an ad executive who is mistaken for a man named Kaplan, kidnaped, interrogated by James Mason as if he were Kaplan, then gotten drunk and stuck behind the wheel of a car on a mountain road.
He survives, goes to the UN to try and find out who Mason is, gets involved in a murder there, hotfoots it to Grand Central, takes a train for Chicago on which he meets the oh-so-lovely Eva Marie Saint, who works for Mason and tells him, once they are in Chicago, where he can at last meet Kaplan—a desolate Indiana spot filled with cornfields.
What follows is one of the very best pieces of action-adventure I have ever read.
* * *
The Crop-Dusting Scene
(written directly for the screen by Lehman)
DISSOLVE TO:
HELICOPTER SHOT--EXT. HIGHWAY 41--(AFTERNOON)
We START CLOSE on a Greyhound bus, SHOOTING DOWN on it, and TRAVELING ALONG with it as it speeds in an easterly direction at 70 m.p.h. Gradually, CAMERA DRAWS AWAY from the bus, going higher but never losing sight of the vehicle, which recedes into the distance below and becomes a toy-like object on an endless ribbon of deserted highway that stretches across miles of flat prairie. Now the bus is slowing down. It is nearing a junction where a small dirt road coming from nowhere crosses the highway and continues on to nowhere. The bus stops. A man gets out. It is Thornhill. But to us he is only a tiny figure. The bus starts away, moves on out of sight. And now Thornhill stands alone beside the road--a tiny figure in the middle of nowhere.
ON THE GROUND--WITH THORNHILL--(MASTER SCENE)
He glances about, studying his surroundings. The terrain is flat and treeless, even more desolate from this vantage point than it seemed from the air. Here and there patches of low-growing farm crops add some contour to the land. A hot sun beats down. UTTER SILENCE hangs heavily in the air. Thornhill glances at his wristwatch. It is 3:25.
In the distance the FAINT HUM of a MOTOR VEHICLE is HEARD. Thornhill looks off to the west. The HUM GROWS LOUDER as the car draws nearer. Thornhill steps closer to the edge of the highway. A black sedan looms up, traveling at high speed. For a moment we are not sure it is not hurtling right at Thornhill. And then it ZOOMS past him, recedes into the distance, becoming a FAINT HUM, a tiny speck, and then SILENCE again.
Thornhill takes out a handkerchief, mops his face. He is beginning to sweat now. It could be from nervousness, as well as the heat. Another FAINT HUM, coming from the east, GROWING LOUDER as he glances off and sees another distant speck becoming a speeding car, this one a closed convertible. Again, anticipation on Thornhill’s face. Again, the vague uneasiness of indefinable danger approaching at high speed. And again, ZOOM--a cloud of dust--a car receding into the distance--a FAINT HUM-- and SILENCE.
His lips tighten. He glances at his watch again. He steps out into the middle of the highway, looks first in one direction, then the other. Nothing in sight. He loosens his tie, opens his shirt collar, looks up at the sun. Behind him, in the distance, another vehicle is HEARD approaching. He turns, looks off to the west.
This one is a huge transcontinental moving van, ROARING TOWARD HIM at high speed. With quick apprehension he moves off the highway to the dusty side of the road as the van thunders past and disappears. Its FADING SOUND is r
eplaced with a NEW SOUND, the CHUGGING of an OLD FLIVVER.
Thornhill looks off in the direction of the approaching SOUND, sees a flivver nearing the highway from the intersecting dirt road. When the car reaches the highway, it comes to a stop. A middle-aged woman is behind the wheel. Her passenger is a nondescript man of about fifty. He could certainly be a farmer. He gets out of the car. It makes a U-turn and drives off in the direction from which it came. Thornhill watches the man take up a position across the highway from him. The man glances at Thornhill without visible interest, then looks off up the highway towards the east as though waiting for something to come along.
Thornhill stares at the man, wondering if this is George Kaplan.
The man looks idly across the highway at Thornhill, his face expressionless.
Thornhill wipes his face with his handkerchief, never taking his eyes off the man across the highway. The FAINT SOUND of an APPROACHING PLANE has gradually come up over the scene. As the SOUND GROWS LOUDER, Thornhill looks up to his left and sees a low-flying biplane approaching from the northwest. He watches it with mounting interest as it heads straight for the spot where he and the stranger face each other across the highway. Suddenly it is upon them, only a hundred feet above the ground, and then, like a giant bird, as Thornhill turns with the plane’s passage, it flies over them and continues on. Thornhill stares after the plane, his back to the highway. When the plane has gone several hundred yards beyond the highway, it loses altitude, levels off only a few feet above the ground and begins to fly back and forth in straight lines parallel to the highway, letting loose a trail of powdered dust from beneath its fuselage as it goes. Any farmer would recognize the operation as simple crop-dusting.
Thornhill looks across the highway, sees that the stranger is watching the plane with idle interest. Thornhill’s lips set with determination. He crosses over and goes up to the man.
THORNHILL
Hot day.
MAN
Seen worse.
THORNHILL
Are you … uh … by any chance supposed to be meeting someone here?
MAN
(still watching the plane)
Which Lie Did I Tell? Page 17