Dirty Dancing (1987)

Spending the summer at a Catskills resort with her family, Frances "Baby" Houseman falls in love with the camp's dance instructor, Johnny Castle.

Director:

Emile Ardolino

Writer:

Eleanor Bergstein

Stars:

Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Jerry Orbach

Won 1 Oscar. Another 11 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jennifer Grey	...	Baby Houseman
Patrick Swayze	...	Johnny Castle
Jerry Orbach	...	Jake Houseman
Cynthia Rhodes	...	Penny Johnson
Jack Weston	...	Max Kellerman
Jane Brucker	...	Lisa Houseman
Kelly Bishop	...	Marjorie Houseman
Lonny Price	...	Neil Kellerman
Max Cantor	...	Robbie Gould
Charles 'Honi' Coles	...	Tito Suarez (as Charles Honi Coles)
Neal Jones	...	Billy Kostecki
'Cousin Brucie' Morrow	...	Magician
Wayne Knight	...	Stan
Paula Trueman	...	Mrs. Schumacher
Alvin Myerovich	...	Mr. Schumacher

Storyline

In 1963, Frances "Baby" Houseman, a sweet daddy's girl, goes with her family to a resort in upstate New York's Catskill Mountains. Baby has grown up in privileged surroundings and all expect her to go on to college, join the Peace Corps and save the world before marrying a doctor, just like her father. Unexpectedly, Baby becomes infatuated with the camp's dance instructor, Johnny Castle, a man whose background is vastly different from her own. Baby lies to her father to get money to pay for an illegal abortion for Johnny's dance partner. She then fills in as Johnny's dance partner and it is as he is teaching her the dance routine that they fall in love. It all comes apart when Johnny's friend falls seriously ill after her abortion and Baby gets her father, who saves the girl's life. He then learns what Baby has been up to, who with and worse, that he funded the illegal abortion. He bans his daughter from any further association with "those people". In the first deliberately willful ...

---

Plot Keywords:

coming of age | abortion | teenager | pantyhose | sexy woman | 

---

Taglines:

First dance. First love. The time of your life.

---

Genres:

Drama | Music | Romance

---

Certificate:

PG-13

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 August 1987 (USA)

Also Known As:

Dirty Dancing

Filming Locations:

Appalachian region, Virginia, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$6,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$3,900,000, 23 August 1987, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$622,968, 14 February 2019

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$170,000,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Great American Films Limited Partnership, Vestron Pictures

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

DTS (re-release) Dolby Digital (re-release) Dolby (original release) SDDS (re-release)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Relations between the two main stars varied throughout production. They had already had trouble getting along in their previous project, Red Dawn (1984), and worked things out enough to have an extremely positive screen-test, but that initial cooperation soon faded, and they were soon "facing off" before every scene. There was concern among the production staff that the animosity between the two stars would endanger the filming of the love scenes. To address this, Eleanor Bergstein and Emile Ardolino forced the stars to re-watch their initial screen-tests, the ones with the "breathtaking" chemistry. This had the desired effect, and Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey were able to return to the film with renewed energy and enthusiasm.

---

Goofs

When Baby and Johnny are driving to the lodge, you see their silhouettes in the car, but not their faces. It's obviously a stunt double wearing a very bad big wig.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Radio disc jockey: [on radio] Hi, everybody, this is your Cousin Brucie. Whoa! Our summer romances are in full bloom, and everybody, but everybody's in love. So cousins, here's a great song from The Four Seasons.
Baby: [voiceover] That was the summer of 1963 - when everybody called me Baby, and it didn't occur to me to mind. That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came, when I couldn't wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I'd never find a guy as great as my dad. That was the ...

---

Connections

Referenced in Mr. Plinkett's Ghostbusters 2016 Review (2017)

---

Soundtracks

Be My Baby
Written by Jeff Barry (uncredited), Ellie Greenwich (uncredited), and Phil Spector (uncredited)
Performed by The Ronettes
Courtesy of Phil Spector International, Inc.
Produced by Phil Spector

User Reviews

It's worth the dance

Dirty Dancing is not a great movie. It's a good movie which could have been great. I'm looking at you Baby and the Lefties who wrote this.

Frances 'Baby' Houseman (Grey) visits a holiday camp with her family, before embarking to college to study Economics of developing countries to make sure all is where everywhere. But unfortunately, not everything is well at the camp either. A female dancer Penny (Rhodes) becomes pregnant and ironically has no money to get an abortion, so Baby helps her out by loaning her a lot of money. Meanwhile, someone has to take Penny's place as a dancer in a nearby hotel, and Baby volunteers for the job. But she can't dance. Only if there was someone to teach her...

And of course, that's what Patrick Swayze is therefore and plenty of scenes with the shirtless hunk ensue and sparks of love fire at every direction. But for the dismay of Swayze, Jennifer Gray can not act which flattens the experience from a great movie to a good movie. Naturally, the incredibly naive leftist ideology that penetrates the film thematically only help to achieve campy silliness, but the kind that isn't sweet or innocent enough to be charming.

But really, Dirty Dancing is about dancing and and wearing skin-tight clothing and there is nothing bad about that. To the contrary, dancing has never seemed so passionate and innocent at the same time, and I would assume that is quite an achievement.