Chicago students in fiction

marlowe1
Sun, 13 May 2018 11:34:37 +0000

We ought to give a tip of the hat to “When Harry Met Sally”, which has that opening scene between Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as recent Chicago graduates who are for some reason just meeting each other on the grass smack dab in the center of the quad. In that scene they agree to share a ride to New York and immediately get in a car conveniently parked there on the turning circle, which then drives north with a beautiful tracking shot following the exit through Hull Gate (which was not at the time in question normally open). Nothing else in the film concerns UChicago, and none of the people involved (Rob Reiner, Nora Ephron, Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan) appear to have any connection to the University. However, I have always thought that the wise-cracking principals might have taken some of their inspiration from the dialogues of Nichols and May, if not the actual real life relationship of that famous pair. They must surely have been big influences on Reiner and Ephron. Making the characters Chicago students could have been an homage to them. However, when the authors created the wised-up quirky characters of Ryan and Crystal and asked themselves what university such characters must have come from - well, the answer might have been obvious.

I’m seriously impressed with our number-crunching friend, @FStratford. Who would have imagined a sideline in the show-biz world! Don’t tell me you also had a part in When Harry Met Sally? Perhaps you are the Forrest Gump of movies with UChicago subject matter! (Nothing surprises me about U of C grads.)