Dirty Dancing
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| Dirty Dancing | |
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 Dirty Dancing film poster |
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| Directed by | Emile Ardolino |
| Produced by | Linda Gottlieb |
| Written by | Eleanor Bergstein |
| Starring | Patrick Swayze Jennifer Grey Jerry Orbach |
| Distributed by | Vestron Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 21, 1987 |
| Running time | 100 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3,000,000 (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dirty Dancing is a 1987 romance film directed by Emile Ardolino. The film starred Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, and Jerry Orbach.
Filmed at Mountain Lake in Virginia and at Lake Lure in North Carolina (although the film was set in Upstate New York), Dirty Dancing was distributed by Vestron Pictures. The movie became a major hit after it was released, despite being a low-budget film with no major stars (at the time). The Dirty Dancing soundtrack is one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time, and it spawned several hit singles, including "She's Like the Wind," written and sung by Swayze; "Hungry Eyes" sung by Eric Carmen; and "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", composed by Franke Previte and sung by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Tagline: Have the time of your life.
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[edit] Plot summary
Frances "Baby" Houseman (Grey) is vacationing with her wealthy, Jewish, suburban New York family at Kellerman's, a fictional resort in the Borscht Belt (a region of the Catskill Mountains of New York) in the summer of 1963. Baby is the liberal feminist in the family, planning to attend Mount Holyoke College to study economics and then to enter the Peace Corps, and she does not feel she fits in with the traditional stereotypes that suit her older sister Lisa perfectly. Baby's father, Jake, is resort owner Max Kellerman's personal physician, and right away the family receives special treatment, including giving their permission for Robbie, their dining room captain, to have a summer romance with Lisa.
One evening, while at the family ballroom dance, Baby sees a Latin dance demonstration by the resort's dance instructor Johnny Castle (Swayze) and his dance partner, Penny. Johnny is by all standards a bad-boy rebel, part of the working-class staff whom all the resort-goers treat like their servants but whose good looks turn more than one female patron's head, including Baby's. Later on that same evening, while out for a walk, stirring music draws her to the staff quarters, where "dirty dancing" is all the rage. This dancing is up close and personal, not the stiff formal style people from her parents' generation are accustomed to. Here she gets a taste of the new dancing; Baby is hooked.
Then, while out on a date with the smarmy Neil Kellerman — grandson of Max — Baby sees Penny crying in the dining-room kitchen, and it comes to light that Penny is pregnant by Robbie - the same Robbie whom Baby's sister Lisa is dating. After she approaches Robbie about the subject and learns of his plans to do nothing about the pregnancy, Baby secures the money from her father to pay for Penny's illegal abortion. In her efforts to help, Baby also becomes Penny's fill-in for a performance at the Shelldrake, a nearby resort where Johnny and Penny are annual performers.
As Baby becomes Johnny's pupil in dance, tempers flare and sparks fly between the two young people. But the stakes begin to rise when Penny's abortion is botched and Baby goes to her father for help, and he forbids her to have anything to do with the rest of Johnny's friends – he mistakenly believes that Johnny was the father and that Johnny has now moved on to prey on Baby – and the two young lovers must keep their romance a secret.
Events come to a head when Johnny is accused of robbing the husband of a female guest after he turned her down for sex. Baby reveals herself to be Johnny's alibi, which, while clearing his name, also ends up costing him his job for having a relationship with a guest. In the film's climactic scene, Johnny returns to the resort to perform the final dance of the season with Baby, whom her parents see for the first time as more than their innocent teenage daughter. Jake is also able to admit his fault in his accusation towards Johnny for "getting Penny in trouble" (Robbie having accidentally confessed to his deed earlier in the scene, while talking to Jake) and compliments his daughter for her wonderful dancing ability.
The film ends with the formal ballroom being essentially transformed into a nightclub where the snobby upper-class patrons and the working-class kids bring together all their own styles of dance, proving that dance and music and above all love do not know class barriers.
[edit] Main cast
- Patrick Swayze - Johnny Castle
- Jennifer Grey - Frances "Baby" Houseman
- Jerry Orbach - Dr. Jake Houseman
- Kelly Bishop - Marjorie Houseman
- Cynthia Rhodes - Penny Johnson
- Jack Weston - Max Kellerman
- Max Cantor - Robbie Gould
[edit] Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, was released in 2004. Although not a remake by any means, Havana Nights showcases a similar storyline about an American teenager relocated to Havana, Cuba, just before the revolution. Patrick Swayze appears as a dance teacher.
[edit] Pop culture references
Johnny Castle's line that "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" was used as the title of two works in homage to the film:
- Episode 2.07 of teen drama/neo-noir TV series Veronica Mars.
- A song by the band Fall Out Boy which appears on both My Heart Will Always Be the B-Side to My Tongue and From Under the Cork Tree. The first is an acoustic version; the latter, an electric.
The movie was translated into a musical in Sydney, Australia, in 2005.
There is a porn actor whose stage name is Johnny Castle. He appears in the Carmen Luvana film O: The Power of Submission.
[edit] Popularity in teen culture
Johnny and Baby's relationship is cited by many adolescents (usually females) as the ultimate romance. The film has, in fact, gained an almost cult following among teenage girls, and many quotes from it (particularly "Nobody puts Baby in a corner") are now familiar catchphrases.
[edit] Importance in movie history
Dirty Dancing has been featured in three installments of the American Film Institute's AFI 100 Years... series, starting in 2002 when it was ranked #93 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions list. It was next seen in 2004 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs list, with its Academy Award-winning song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" ranking #86. It was seen again in 2005 listed Johnny's famous line "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" was ranked #98 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list. It is also rumored that Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey did not get along while filming.
[edit] Box Office
With a budget of only 3 million dollars, the movie was a huge success earning $213,954,274 in worldwide boxoffice totals.
The film has even been described as, "the Star Wars for girls." [1]
[edit] 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD and Blu-Ray
Lionsgate will release a special edition of Dirty Dancing that will arrive on standard DVD, as well as Blu-Ray, on May 8, 2007. The specifics of the bonus materials are not yet released.
[edit] See also
- 1950s nostalgia films
- Bruce Morrow "Cousin Brucie", the famous WABC announcer who provides the outro to the movie (and also cameos as the magician)
- Dirty Dancing soundtrack.
- Kenny Ortega, choreographer
[edit] External links
