FILMS… Dirty Dancing (1987)

#1980s #AllPosts

 

Remembering a film and a cinema trip as I go back to the 1980s…

 

The year is 1987, the film is Dirty Dancing and the stars are Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze.

 

Baby and daddy

Baby and Johnny

Dirty Dancing (1987) Official Trailer – Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey Movie HD, Movieclips Classic Trailers and photos © Vestron Pictures

 

I was happy when Dave – the head honcho at Banzai Retro Club – asked me to write about my memories of a cinema trip in the 1980s. My first thought admittedly was remembering a trip to a first non-Disney film in the Seventies. As a kid, I’d seen The Fox and the Hound (1981), Herbie Goes Bananas (1980) and Digby the Biggest Dog in the World (1973). But like most kids my age, I wanted something a bit less sentimental that didn’t involve an annoying VW Beetle.

In 1978, I saw Grease (1978) at the cinema and became transfixed by movies and hooked on their merchandise, I had the soundtrack, the book and a bag with a Grease logo. But I stress I did not have a crush on John Travolta. As a 9-year-old girl who most definitely didn’t like boys, he was more of a John Revolting. So as a bit of a Grease groupie, I entered the 80s…

The 80s, of course, was the age I was more into the doings of J.R. Ewing and his family and feuding in TV’s Dallas (1978-91) than the cinema. Possibly as a very wee (small) girl of 15, I couldn’t get into those 15 rated films. I thought about the films that I saw and their memories with one standing out from the rest.

It wasn’t the time my then friend stormed out of the cinema in the opening credits rolled in ET The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) for no reason or the time I watched Adventures in Babysitting / A Night on the Town (1987) with my best girlie friend of now over 30 years in a first holiday – without any parents what-so-ever – in Belgium.

It wasn’t even my first ever date where I saw Michael Douglas’s bottom in Fatal Attraction (1987) (though Michael Douglas was more than a crush, and even more so than the date). It was the time I embarrassed my sister during a showing of Dirty Dancing (1987).

At this time the 80s were into movies about babies, there was Baby Boom (1987), Look Who’s Talking (1987) and Maybe Baby (For Keeps?) (1988). Even Kevin Bacon got in on the act with She’s Having a Baby (1988). Dirty Dancing is a coming of age movie with Patrick Swayze as Johnny – rechristened the Swizzle after this film – and Jennifer Grey as a Baby (Frances) Houseman.

Not that she’s an actual baby, but the baby of the family at 17, the same age I was watching this movie. Grey is an actress who I only recently found out is Joel Grey’s daughter, with Grey appearing in that final Dallas episode (but that’s another review).

The plot tells of how Baby Frances Houseman (Grey) goes on a family holiday to a resort. falling in love with the apparent bad boy, dance instructor Johnny (Swayze) who indulges in Dirty Dancing. Where you rub your bits against him in a passionate frenzied sexually charged dance which only works if you are as tall as he is (believe me).

Of course, she grows up, he teaches her how to dance, and she teaches him about life. Then he’s implicated in a crime based at the camp with her as his alibi as was with her on the night concerned as they got more than a wee bit intimate.

Cue disappointment from her daddy, as his wee baby grew up, and then, of course, Johnny returns for those iconic – much-parodied see Blue Harvest (Seth MacFarlane’s Star Wars parody) – final scenes where he dances with Baby after inviting her to the dance floor in front of her parents with “Nobody puts Baby in the corner”. A line which is believably more romantic than if he’d been Scottish would have been “You dancin’, I’m askin?”.

So watching this movie, I loved the time of the story, the Swinging Sixties and the outstanding soundtrack, which I (and my poor family/flatmates) listened to ad nauseam afterwards. Which was a bit sad, as I remembered it in Swayze’s contribution She’s Like the Wind as I watched those contrasting scenes of love and hate in 500 Days of Summer (2009) many decades later.

Admittedly, the Dirty Dancing plot where Baby grew up in her family’s eyes was secondary to the relationship between Baby and Johnny, as we didn’t notice it. Possibly as there was lots of shirtless Swayze – if you like that sort of thing – fabulous montages and some great lines. So you can imagine just how engrossed I got in this movie.

In their romance, Johnny returns with Baby confessing all of their night of sin to the Holiday Club owner and her father. Johnny dances – with all the wee dancers behind him in perfect choreography (at this point I remember feeling breathless and catching my breath simultaneously) – he dances towards Frances /Baby and he jumps off the stage.

This part as seen in the trailer was not in 3D, as my Darlin Husband was surprised to learn on hearing my then reaction. I screamed but according to my sister, I stood up and screamed. But that I’m sure was on another occasion with her, and on seeing Dallas star Patrick Duffy live (see another time I embarrassed my sister).

My sister then sinks into her seat with embarrassment. She then probably vowed to never go to the cinema with me again… But for me, although I didn’t have a soft spot for Swayze, I’d like to thank this film star for I had the time of my life because I owe it all to him…

 

Weeper Rating:   😦 😦  😦 /10

Handsqueeze Rating:   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 10

Hulk Rating: ‎  ‎ ‎  ‎‎ /10