Saturday, 26 January 2013

Estell Reiner, Sally & Harry

Jan 26B

In the history of cinematography there have a great number of memorable phrases, that can't separate from the faces of actors or actresses who pronounced them, more so perhaps than even the story. In many cases, even long after your have forgotten about the name of the film, the story, but those catch phrases seem to remain for ever, which at any given moment would just pop up in your mind and often pop out from your mouth. I bet we all remember quite a number of those.

The American actress, Estell Reiner, passed away a few years ago at the age of 94, of natural causes. She was made famous by uttering just one sentence in one of the most celebrated great films of the 80's, hers but a mere cameo roll in 'When Harry meets Sally'. That was a very enjoyable comedy although for the life of me I can't remember much details of the story, but one particular scene had stuck in my mind ever since, same for sure with the majority of people who have seen it. The scene that had made Meg Ryan a huge star for her delicious performance in which she feigned an orgasm right in the middle of a crowned restaurant, screaming out loud her ecstasy to a thundering crescendo. Estell Reiner came into the restaurant in time to catch that delightful sequence and, just then the waitress asked her what did she want to have, and she said, pointing at Meg Ryan: "Bring me the same - whatever she just had!'

Bet you do remember that, don't you? Even if you were too young to see films like 'Gone with the wind' when it was first out, you must have seen it in one of the many reruns that appear every couple of years, and I confessed that I am definitely a fan of old films. I must have seen it in total no less than 6-7 times!! How can anyone forget the way Clark Gable said to Vivien Leigh, with that arrogant smirk on his face: "Frankly my beautiful, I don't give a damn."?

Or, Humphrey Bogart saying to Lauren Bacall in the film 'CasaBlanca': "There would always be Paris for us." Or in many of the real oldies, long before all of our time, with Mae West, (all scripts and dialogue written by herself too) when she said: 'When I am good, I am very good; when I am bad, I am better!" That to me was ultimately ingenious. Or her "Come up to see me sometime!" .Ordinary enough remark. Naturally, the way these legendary phrases were so well remembered were due to the credit of the stars, in the way they were said, accompanied with just the right degree of cheek, cynicism, irony, expressions, gestures or postures.

I am annoyed with myself that I still can't whistle, even though I have practised many times another of the well known catch phrase: 'Just put you lips together, and, blow!'

Alas, I simply can't blow!

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