My Speculations About the Talent Show in the Original Script

In order to convince Patrick Swayze to play the role of Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing, the producers granted Swayze great authority in changing the script. By 1986, when the movie was filmed, he had played major roles in about a dozen movies. (His first major role was in Skatetown USA in 1979). He also had taken acting lessons for many years and had seriously thought about all of his movies and roles.

Although Patrick's wife Lisa never became a star, she too studied acting, and she helped Patrick analyze all his roles. Patrick and Lisa deserve much more credit than they have received for improving the script of Dirty Dancing.

In his autobiography The Time of My Life, he describes (page 130) the original script as follows:

I read the script for Dirty Dancing one evening in our new house. Right away it filled me with emotion -- but not the kind it was supposed to. I didn't like it. It seemed fluffy -- nothing more than a summer-camp movie. Lisa read it, too, and she felt the same way.

Further, he tells (pages 136-137) how he rewrote the last scene.

Lisa and I stayed up the entire night before filming the final scene, where Johnny [Castle] grabs the microphone in front of everyone at the resort, so we could rewrite the big speech. Sometimes we'd be working on new dialogue right up to shooting -- and then continue fixing it between takes. We never stopped trying to make it better.

I felt all along that Johnny should ultimately end up with Penny [Johnson], as they were so much alike and a more realistic couple than Johnny and Baby [Houseman]. That change got overruled, which was probably for the best. ...

We [Patrick and Lisa] did a lot of rewriting of the big final scene, but one line that I absolutely hated ended up staying in. I could hardly even bring myself to say, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" in front of the cameras, it just sounded so corny. But later, seeing the finished film, I had to admit it worked. ...

The more we added and revised, the stronger the characters got.

The reason why Patrick and Lisa Swayze stay up all night "rewriting" Johnny's speech is that (I speculate) Eleanor Bergstein's original script did not have any such speech at all.

Swayze's book suggests that Bergstein's original script did include Johnny's statement Nobody puts Baby is the corner. However, I speculate that the statement was added during a last-day argument about the drastic change of the final scene. The argument was settled with a compromise that the scene would include the speech written by Patrick and Lisa during the preceding night on the condition that the scene include also the corner statement that likewise was added during the last-day argument.

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The song that originally accompanied Baby's and Johnny's triumphant dance was not The Time of My Life. Rather, the song was an unidentified song composed by Lionel Richie. In a previous article, I argued that the song was Richie's Dancing on the Ceiling.

The fact that the song was changed was revealed in an interview of Frank Previte, who wrote The Time of My Life.

When I [Previte] met Patrick at the Oscars [in 1988], he told me:

"You have no idea what this song ["The Time of My Life"] did for this movie. We filmed the movie out of sequence so the last scene was the first one filmed. We listened to 149 songs and hated them. We rehearsed every day to a Lionel Richie track. Good song but it wasn’t our song. We all felt the ending wasn’t happening and the movie was going to bomb."

"Then your cassette with you and Rachele Cappelli singing 'Time of My Life' came in. We filmed to that, and at the end of the day we all looked at each other and said "Wow, what just happened? This ending is awesome! Let’s go make this movie!"

It changed everything for them for the better. The camaraderie that wasn’t there was now there. 

The above quote indicates to me the following considerations:

* As written in the screenplay, the final scene caused much dissatisfaction and dissension among top people making the movie.

* The final filming of that scene was postponed for a considerable time while various decisions and changes were made.

* After the scene was changed, the top people shared a consensus that the scene was dramatically better.

I am sure that Eleanor Bergstein herself agreed happily that the change improved her movie. She deserves praise for going along with her collaborators' constructive criticism. The result is that her movie is brilliant.

Nobody should think that I am trying to tarnish Bergstein's glory. Rather, I am trying merely to deduce the final scene that had existed before the collaborative improvements to which she agreed.

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In the above excerpt from Swayze's autobiography, the paragraph saying that Johnny should ultimately end up with Penny is sandwiched between 1) a paragraph saying that the Swayzes rewrote the big speech and 2) a paragraph about the Baby in the corner statement. This context indicates to me that Swayze argued that the final scene should include a revelation that Johnny would end up with Penny.

Swayze's argument about the Johnny-and-Penny ending surely boggles the minds of the movie's fans. However, when Swayze was making that argument, the story's ending was less about Baby's love for Johnny and more about Baby's rivalry with her sister Lisa.

As long as Baby outperformed Lisa in the talent show, Baby should be satisfied to relinquish Johnny to Penny, who was his better match. That was the essence of Swayze's argument, which was reasonable when the story still was mostly about the Baby-Lisa rivalry.

Keep in mind that Bergstein's original script had been rejected by all the major producers. It was rejected not because all the producers were stupid, but rather because the script "seemed fluffy" -- was different from the later, rewritten, final script.

Think about that before you scoff at me for speculating that the original story was mostly about the rivalry between Baby and Lisa. The movie ended with Baby outperforming Lisa in the talent show.

Baby triumphed over Lisa by sexually seducing professional-dancer Johnny so that he would help her organize a spectacular performance in the talent show.

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Based on my speculation, I hypothesize this story.

The movie begins with the Baby-Lisa rivalry. Baby reads economics textbooks and wants to pursue a career. Lisa reads women's magazines, frets about her personal appearance and wants to marry a medical student.

On the Houseman family's first day at the resort, while they still are unloading their car, Billy Kostecki appears and offers Baby a job. She can earn some money by working secretly as the magician's stooge. Baby agrees. Because she will be a focus of attention during the magic show, she wants to look sexy, so she tightens her bra straps to lift her breasts.

Billy has told Baby to go to the resort's main building at the time when the Entertainment Staff will arrive. There she will meet the magician, who will instruct her how to act as his stooge in his magic tricks. When Baby arrives at the main building's back door, she sees Max Kellerman lecturing his waiters about flattering the guests' teenage daughters, and she sees the Entertainment Staff arrive, led by Johnny.

Baby learns from the magician how to help do the magic tricks, and subsequently she acts as the stooge in the magic show later that evening.

Later, when Baby wanted $250 for Penny's abortion, she perhaps tried to get the money from the magician and/or Neil Kellerman. These conversations might have introduced the idea of Baby participating in a spectacular magic show on the last night. Maybe the show's best performance would win a $250 prize.

While Baby is learning to dance with Johnny for the Sheldrake performance, she starts to think how she could incorporate her new dance skills into the last-night magic show. Baby's dance performance at the talent show will be far better than Lisa's dopey singing of the song I'm So Pretty.

However, Baby foresees that Johnny will have little interest in herself after Penny recovers from her abortion.

Therefore, Baby schemes to seduce Johnny right after the Sheldrake performance. Baby threatens Lisa to prevent Lisa from informing their parents about Baby's absent all night. On the drive to and from the Sheldrake, Baby bares her breasts to Johnny in the car. Finally, Baby does to Johnny's cabin and accomplishes her seduction.

To continue enjoying sex with Baby, Johnny continues to spend time with her and helps her practice and perform her talent-show dance. Together, Baby and Johnny begin to develop the talent-show performance. Scenes of their practice sessions are accompanied partially by Swayze's song "She's Like the Wind", because Baby flies through the air in her fearful, clumsy attempts to master the lift movement.

The planned performance gradually takes shape. Baby will be sawed in half by the magician. Then there will be some magic trick involving the ceiling. Then Johnny will come onto the stage and will rejoin the magician's sawed-in-half box. Then Baby will emerge with her whole body from the box, and she and Johnny will perform their dance.

Baby's and Johnny's practice sessions are shown in the movie. Also shown are Johnny's teaching the hotel staff Cuban-soul dances. There are lots of dance scenes.

However, during the final days before the talent show, Johnny squabbles with Neil and is falsely accused of stealing money from Moe Pressman, and so Johnny is fired. As Johnny says goodbye to Baby, he jokes, Maybe they'll saw you in seven pieces now in order to fill all the time in her truncated talent-show performance.

Baby is disappointed, because all her efforts for the talent show have turned out to be inconsequential. By default, Lisa will shine as the family's star performer with her "I'm So Pretty".

However, instead of driving home to New York City, Johnny drives just 20 minutes to the Sheldrake Hotel, where he gets hired immediately for the next season. Now financially secure, Johnny drives back to Kellerman's just as the talent show is about to end.

The planned magic tricks have been abandoned (the movie audience already has seen the tricks being practiced), so Johnny just grabs Baby from her table and leads her up onto the stage. Tito Suarez's orchestra begins to play Lionel Richie's song "Dancing on the Ceiling", and Baby and Johnny perform their dance. This time Baby leaps up into the lift fearlessly and flawlessly.

After that dance, the movie's denouement happens essentially the same way it happens in the current movie.

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Swayze argued that the denouement should include a moment revealing that Johnny would get together with Penny. After all, Baby was going away to college and career, so the movie audience should be happy to see Johnny and Penny get together.

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In the current movie, the final scene begins with Billy Kostecki putting a single record onto a record player and playing the song "The Time of My Life". During the denouement, however, the movie audience sees that Tito Suarez is conducting his orchestra, which is playing the song. At that moment, Max Kellerman asks Tito:

Do you have sheet music on this stuff?

Indeed, in the original story Suarez and his orchestra did have the sheet music, because Baby and Johnny had planned and practiced their performance and so had provided the sheet music to Suarez's orchestra.

Since all the practice for the talent-show dance has been removed from the movie, however, the final scene has to begin with Billy Kostecki putting the record onto the record player. Now the dance seems to be spontaneous, and the orchestra's sheet music is mysterious.

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This article follows up four previous articles.

1) The Re-Writing of Eleanor Bergstein's Script

2) My Speculations About Eleanor Bergstein's Original Script

3) My Speculations About Script Changes Made by the Swayzes and by Rhodes

4) My Speculation About the Construction of the Story