DIRTY DANCING

Year: 1987 (DVD: 2007)
USA: Vestron Pictures
UK: Lionsgate Films UK
Cast: Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Cynthia Rhodes, Jane Brucker, Jack Weston, Kelly Bishop, Charles Honi Coles, "Cousin Brucie" Morrow, Jerry Orbach, Lonny Price, Max Cantor, Neal Jones, Wayne Knight, Paula Trueman, Alvin Myerovich, Miranda Garrison, Garry Goodrov, Antone Pagan, Tom Gannold, M R Fletcher, Jesus Puentes, Heather Lea Gerdes, Karen Getz Andrew, Charles Koch D A, Pauley Dorian Sanchez, Jennifer Stahl, Jonathan Barnes, Dwyght Bryan, Ton Drake, John Gotz, Dwayne Malphus, Dr Qifford Watkins
Director: Emile Ardolino
Country: USA
USA & UK: 100 mins
UK: 96 mins (DVD)
USA Rated: PG-13
UK Certificate: 15
UK Certificate: 12A (DVD)
UK DVD Release Date: 9 February 2007

Synopsis

A 20th Anniversary release of the 80's cult classic love film DIRTY DANCING, it has now been digitally restored. Starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey - get ready to re-live the time of your life!

It was the era of Camelot, Kennedy and Cape Canaveral, a vibrant time when anything was possible and everything was exciting. By the summer of 1963, every American knew and felt that the future had arrived. And what a time of firsts it was. THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES were America's favourite TV' family. The movies' James Bond made a good first impression in DR NO The Beatles were emerging out of Liverpool's dance clubs and America was getting ready for the four mop-tops to invade its shores.

Frontiers were opening, movement was happening all over America. Betty Friedan published "The Feminine Mystique." Martin Luther King shared an exquisite dream on the Kail in Washington. The Mercury Astronauts commuted to work via outer space. American advisors reported for duty in French Indo-China (aka Vietnam) and President Kennedy would be assassinated that November.

DIRTY DANCING is set when "the sixties" were beginning to happen, but before anybody saw it coming, before anybody understood the change in rules, the widening gap between generations, the revising of political, sexual and even emotional line.

One part of the popular culture that was changing was the music. DIRTY DANCING chronicles social dancing's place in this turning point time as experienced by one 17 year-old girl. Like the world at large, Frances "Baby" Houseman, portrayed by Jennifer Grey, comes into her own in the summer of 1963, but in the most unlikely of places - Kellerman's Mountain House in the Catskills, where she accompanies her family (Jerry Orbach, Kelly Bishop and Jane Brucker) - doctor father, nurturing mother, princess sister — on a summer vacation. Baby, who dreams of joining the Peace Corps, to experience the world and change it, can see little purpose or joy in learning the Merengue, playing charades or taking part in the normal roster of the resort's activities.

However, one evening while exploring the grounds, Baby comes upon the staff's quarters where an all-night dance party is in full swing. The staff, not the Ivy Leaguers but the streetwise kids, are wriggling and writhing together to the blasting, syncopated sexiness of the great R&B classic "Do You Love Me." What they are doing - sensuous and exhilarating - is "dirty dancing." To Baby, it's both mesmerizing and mortifying and, for a reason only her body can explain, deliciously inviting. Here amidst the excitement, Baby discovers Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), the resort's dance instructor.

Overnight, her life changes dramatically when Johnny's dazzling dance partner. Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) is sidelined by a devastating personal trauma, and Baby seizes the opportunity to help her and agrees to become Johnny's new on-stage leading lady.

By summer's end, Frances — no longer is she a "Baby" — has learned how to share her heart, how to express herself freely and generously. And Johnny comes to terms with himself through Frances' concern and caring. Both of them come to understand their places in a rapidly changing world — a world that ultimately will come to accept "dirty dancing" the way it will come to terms with the social/sexual revolution that is just around the bend.

The choreography in DIRTY DANCING is a release of the character's self-expression, and for Baby it is the means with which she changes and discovers her sexuality. Choreographer Kenny Ortega based the dances on "all the original dancing of the early '60's.