Dirty Dancing

Unquestionably king of the "slightly bigger budget" Dance movies from the decade of dance, Dirty Dancing is a rare case of a movie that warmly deserves its runaway success.

Made for a relative pittance by independent studio Vestron, the true story of Dirty Dancing is one of persistence ...not least on the part of the lady on whose life the story is (loosely) based.

Eleanor Bergstein wrote Dirty Dancing as a warm recollection of her memories of trips with her parents to Catskills holiday camps just like "Kellerman's" in the movie.

To her dismay, it took many years of pushing before any of the studios got interested. She even resorted to making tapes of the music she envisioned accompanying the movie to help to drum up some interest. At the time, as if to add insult to injury, the tapes were much more popular with studio executives than the script!

Often derided by men as the Seminal UltraCheese(tm) teen romantic 'chick flick', Dirty Dancing is one of those movies that became a cliche in itself through its seemingly endless appeal to the fairer sex of all ages.

And the suprise here, guys, is that if you bother to watch it again, the movie really is a whole lot better than your memory of it.

The root of the story is, of course, a female orientated romantic fantasy involving a talented, intense and handsome summer camp dance instructor, played by Patrick Swayze.

Set in the summer of 1963, mollycoddled teenager 'Baby', played by Jennifer Grey, goes to a Catskills summer holiday camp with her parents, and life couldn't have been more boring -until she meet's the aforementioned rebellious dance teacher (Swayze).

What follows is a very warm and good hearted coming-of-age fantasy where Baby (what a hideous name), helps the older experienced character (Swayze) realise himself and his place in the world and vice versa.

Baby, in the process, tangles with and finally reconciles herself with, her strong father, played admirably by Jerry Orbach.

For many 'Generation X' guys that were dating in the late 80's, this was one of the films that they loved to hate (many of them being forced to see the film many times over at the cinema and on the small screen on video and HBO).

The movie is, in some ways, a celluloid "Mills & Boon" that's also akin to a "Star Wars" for girls... --A big build up to a climactic ending. The viewer (especially the repeat viewer) knows that it's coming, but loves it anyway...

The magic lies in the sheer energy of the movie, the sincere way the characters are played and, of course, the musical score brimming with contemporary and period numbers. The morality is a bit heavy handed at times, but that is normal for an 80's teen movie..or any self-respecting fairy tale.

The characters have a nice, believable amount of eccentricity too.