Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing is a 1987 romance film. Written by Eleanor Bergstein and directed by Emile Ardolino, the film features Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze, Cynthia Rhodes, and Jerry Orbach. The story details the moment of time that a teenaged girl crosses over into womanhood both physically and emotionally, through a relationship with a dance instructor during a family summer vacation. Around a third of the movie involves dancing scenes choreographed by Kenny Ortega (later famous for High School Musical), and the finale has been described as “the most goosebump-inducing dance scene in movie history”.
Originally a low-budget film by a new studio and with no major stars (at the time), Dirty Dancing became a massive box office hit. As of 2007, it has earned $300 million worldwide. It was the first film to sell more than a million copies on home video, and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack generated two multi-platinum albums and multiple singles, including “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”, which won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song, and a Grammy Award for best duet. The film spawned a 2004 prequel, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, as well as a stage version which has had sellout performances in Australia, Europe, and North America, with plans to open on Broadway.
Plot analysis
Dirty Dancing has been described as a coming-of-age tale showing the passage from adolescence to adulthood, in a classic hero’s journey format. The hero, Baby, is an innocent who receives a call to adventure from a gatekeeper – one of the camp staff asking her in to the party – who invites her to cross a bridge (symbolically significant as it links different realms) and Baby passes into an unfamiliar world (the resort’s staff and their more sensual dancing). Baby then proceeds through tests and trials (dancing lessons, taking the lead in dealing with Penny’s abortion, preparing for and completing the performance at the Sheldrake, standing up for Johnny) to achieve personal growth, “knowledge acquired through personal experience”. She is rewarded for her achievements, by sexual union with Johnny. At the end of the film she undergoes the supreme ordeal (dancing in front of her parents and the audience including the climactic lift), which she conquers, and is rewarded by being raised, both literally into the air and figuratively into divinity, demonstrating that the hero has achieved a new higher state of being, and has been permanently changed by the journey
Music
Rehearsals for the dancing, and some of the filming, used music from Bergstein’s personal collection of 45s. When it came time to select actual music for the film, Vestron chose Jimmy Ienner as music supervisor. Ienner, who had previously produced albums and songs for John Lennon and Three Dog Night, opted to stick with much of the music that had already been used during filming, and obtained licenses for the songs from Bergstein’s collection. He also enlisted Swayze to sing the new song “She’s Like the Wind.” Swayze had written the song a few years earlier with Stacy Widelitz, originally intending for it to be used in the 1984 film Grandview, U.S.A..
The movie’s incidental music score was composed by John Morris. The Kellermans’ song that closes the talent show scene had lyrics written specifically for the film, and was sung to the tune of Annie Lisle, a commonly-used theme for school alma maters. Kenny Ortega and his assistant Miranda Garrison chose the song for the finale by going through an entire box of tapes listening to each one. According to Ortega, literally the last tape that they listened to had “The Time of My Life”, which they saw as the obvious choice. Ienner then insisted that Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes record it. The song won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Duet, an Academy Award for Best Original Song, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.
The film’s soundtrack started an oldies music revival, and demand for the album caught RCA by surprise. According to Previte, before a single had even been released, there were a million albums on back-order. The Dirty Dancing album spent 18 weeks at number 1 on the Billboard 200 album sales charts and went platinum eleven times, selling more than 39 million copies worldwide. It spawned a follow-up multi-platinum album in February 1988, entitled More Dirty Dancing, selling 32 million copies worldwide.
Songs from the album which appeared on the charts included:
- “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”, performed by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, composed by Franke Previte, John deNicola, and Donald Markowitz – this song rose to number 1 on the pop charts.
- “She’s Like the Wind”, performed by lead actor Patrick Swayze, composed by Swayze and Stacy Widelitz
- “Hungry Eyes”, performed by Eric Carmen, composed by Franke Previte and John deNicola
Legacy
The film’s huge success had the paradoxical effect of backfiring on some of the participants. Patrick Swayze was routinely parodied in the media, and in 1989, received two nominations for worst actor from the Golden Raspberry awards, for his performances in Next of Kin and Road House. But in 1990, Swayze again had success in Ghost with Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. Grey, for her part, had a rhinoplasty in the early 1990s, which changed her nose and made her face nearly unrecognizable from her “Baby” character. She was never able to find a role which matched the success that she had in Dirty Dancing. As for the studio, despite the film’s huge monetary success, Vestron followed it up with a series of flops, and ran out of money. Vestron’s parent company Vestron Inc. went bankrupt in 1990, and was bought out in January 1991 by LIVE Entertainment for $26 million. The rights to Dirty Dancing passed to Artisan Entertainment, and later to Lionsgate.
Jerry Orbach, already known as a successful Broadway actor, continued in different genres. He was the voice of the candelabra “Lumiere” in the 1991 Disney animated film, Beauty and the Beast and then took on his best-known role, detective Lennie Briscoe on Law & Order, which he played from 1992 until his death in 2004.[38] Choreographer Kenny Ortega went on to choreograph other major pictures such as the 1992 Newsies and starting in 2006, the High School Musical series. He also became a director of film and television, including several episodes of Gilmore Girls, in which Dirty Dancing‘s Kelly Bishop had a starring role.
Various images and lines from the film have worked their way into popular culture. Johnny Castle’s line “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” has been used in song lyrics, and was the title of an episode of the TV series Veronica Mars.
While the Mountain Lake Inn still stands in western Virginia, the site where the Lake Lure scenes were filmed at the old Boys Camp are long gone – some due to vandalism and some due to fire. As of 2007, the Kellerman’s/Sheldrake Ballroom had burnt down, the staff cabins were gone, the dance rehearsal studio and the Dirty Dancer’s hangout were all gone. All that remains of the site are the stairs that Jennifer Grey’s character carries a watermelon up. As of 2008, the site has become private property for multi-million dollar lake homes.
The movie is mentioned throughout the Canadian TV Series Trailer Park Boys.