The Wolf Files: Meg Ryan Faked Here
June 3, 2003 -- -- — Remember when Meg Ryan demonstrated the art of faking an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally? Would you like to have what she had? In the very same spot? Now you can.
Katz's Delicatessen in New York City will soon bear a plaque to commemorate the scene in the 1989 Rob Reiner comedy when Ryan demonstrated to Billy Crystal just how easy it is to fool a man.
Ryan's moan-and-groan performance was so good, a middle-aged woman at a nearby table delivered one of the movie's best lines, "I'll have what she's having."
You'll soon see such plaques throughout New York. Organizers of the Tribeca Film Festival announced that Katz's Deli was the first of many locations to be commemorated under the new "Set in New York" program.
Katz's didn't wait for the city to act. Several years ago it posted a sign that read, "You are sitting where Harry met Sally." But that's not exactly accurate.
The characters actually had shared a car ride years earlier. But how much detail do you really need when you're eating?
An Appetite for Scandal
It's unclear what other sites will be designated. One would imagine that you'll soon see a plaque at the top of the Empire State Building, where Ryan shared a more traditional film moment with Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle.
Those fairy-tale moments are nice, but there's no denying that movie lovers have an appetite to see where some of the most salacious and even horrific scenes were filmed.
Even in New York, some moments of movie magic are just passed over every day, such as the subway grating on the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street, where Marilyn Monroe posed suggestively as a gust of wind billowed up her shear white dress in 1955's The Seven Year Itch.
Joe DiMaggio, Monroe's then-husband, was supposedly furious with the shot, and their marriage dissolved soon after.
"It's a reality check." says Chris Epting, author of James Dean Died Here (Santa Monica Press), a travel guide to offbeat cultural landmarks. "When you connect with a movie, it's only natural to be drawn to whatever part of the story actually exists."
Epting offers a road map to places you may have visited often in your nightmares, such as the Evans City, Pa., cemetery in Night of the Living Dead and the treacherous staircase in Washington, D.C., where the devil sent victims hurtling to their deaths in The Exorcist.
What’s Tony Soprano’s Business in the Ladies’ Room?
New York's travel industry is well aware that some tourists are more eager to see Sex and the City hot spots than the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Sex and the City bus tour takes you to Carrie's shopping haunts, not to mention the Pleasure Chest, the specialty store where the girls buy sex toys, and the downtown church where Samantha tried to seduce a priest.
"The church officials let us bring people there. They're very nice about it, and many of the people come dressed as a Sex and the City girl," says Georgette Blau, president of On Location Tours.
The Sopranos bus tour takes visitors to Satin Dolls, the Lodi, N.J., strip club that serves as the Bada Bing — the Soprano crew's hangout. The notoriety has been a windfall in sweatshirt and souvenir profits for the club.
The tour proves — among other things — that Tony Soprano conducts business from what's actually the Satin Doll's ladies’ room. Also, New Jersey law bans all-nude acts. The club strippers actually show more on TV.
Sue Sadik, a 42-year-old former private detective who's better known as "Soprano Sue," documents every shallow grave and dive bar in Soprano gangland. Just don't take her to Tony's house, where residents have complained of thrill-seeking fans.
"For me, it's sacred ground," says Sadik.
Owning a private home used as an exterior shot in a movie or TV show can be a pain. Just ask the California residents who own the Brady Bunch home in Studio City or the Poltergeist home in Simi Valley.
It's no wonder you'll rarely hear a real address on a TV show. In Manhattan, the Park Avenue apartment building shown on the TV version of The Odd Couple still receives mail for Oscar and Felix.
Boy Scouts Overcome Friday the 13th
If New York decides to commemorate its most infamous film moments, it'll have a lot to chose from. But what are the ramifications? Would you want to work out in the YMCA used in The Godfather, where Michael Corleone had rival gangster Moe Green shot through the eye? How about crossing the toll booth where Sonny is riddled with bullets?
"It doesn't always make sense to play up a film location, but that doesn't stop people from coming there," says Epting, who notes in his book that the original Friday the 13th was filmed at a Boy Scout camp in northwest New Jersey, which doesn't exactly advertise that notoriety.
In the 1980 horror classic, the camp had been closed for more than a decade after a series of grisly murders. Several kids ignore the death curse but are killed one by one by the mother of Jason, a camper who had drowned years earlier. Jason takes over for his mom in sequels.
That's quite a tale to tell around the campfire, but the legend of Jason apparently can't stop the Boy Scouts.
Traveling outside New York and Los Angeles, communities tend to be even more proud of their spot in film history — even when the films get decidedly gruesome. With help from Epting, here are some tourist attractions for movie buffs with a decidedly strong stomach.
Frighteningly Popular Tourist Attractions
Deliverance From Evil: If ever a movie inspired a city dweller to keep far away from the backwaters of the South, it was Deliverance, the foreboding 1972 tale of four men on a canoe trip that turned into a nightmare when the vacationers were attacked and one of them was sexually assaulted.
While Southerners could hardly be shown in a less flattering light, the Rabun County, Ga., Chamber of Commerce says the film actually sparked an interest in Tallulah Falls and increased interest in whitewater rafting. The hit song featured in the film, "Dueling Banjos," has become inexorably linked with the community, and the happy twanging is now easily separated from the film's disturbing subject matter.
Hitchcock Fans Flock to California:Bodega Bay is proud to say it's going to The Birds. The picturesque California town north of San Francisco recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the site where Alfred Hitchcock filmed the thriller where gulls, ravens and other fowl inexplicably ravaged the community.
Brian Larson of the Bodega Bay Lodge and Spa even played up the "moody" skies along the bay's coast and omnipresent beady-eyed vultures awaiting their turn to rule the roost.
"Tourists haven't been attacked in a long time," Larson says.
Bewitching Appeal: When The Blair Witch Project became a surprise hit, fans began flocking to Burkittsville, Md., and local officials complained that thrill seekers were snatching up road signs and vandalizing tombstones.
The obsession reached such heights that the mayor offered this exasperated message on her voice mail: "This is the town office, Burkittsville, Maryland. … If this is in regards to The Blair Witch Project, it is fiction."
But Burkittsville, a tiny hamlet of 200 people, wised up to the fast-buck mentality. Previously unemployed locals quickly found a place in a burgeoning tourist business, selling $7 versions of the rock-and-stick totems featured in the movie and "witch-chaser" bags filled with smooth stones, garlic cloves and lavender sprigs.
A Bloody Good Workout: The Hermosa Beach Community Center in California, still a magnet for the community, was the very spot where Sissy Spacek was doused with pig's blood in Brian DePalma's 1976 horror flick, Carrie. The gym today looks very much as it does in the film, and undoubtedly serves as a good reminder to the children: You shouldn't tease other kids.
Buck Wolf is entertainment producerat ABCNEWS.com. The Wolf Files ispublished Tuesdays. If you want to receive weekly notice whena new column is published, join the e-maillist.