Dirty Dancing Analysis

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Symbolism and Foreshadowing in Baby's Opening Monologue

The movie Dirty Dancing begins with Baby's monologue, as she is riding in a car on August 18, 1963.

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.

Baby's monologue provides this sequence of events:

1) During the summer of 1963, Baby was called "Baby" by everyone.

2) During the summer of 1963, Baby couldn't wait to join the Peace Corps.

3) During the summer of 1963, Baby thought she never would find a guy as great as her Dad.

4) After the summer -- after September 23, 1963 -- Baby no longer was called "Baby" by everyone.

5) On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was shot.

6) On February 7, 1964, The Beatles came to America.

7) On August 21, 1987, movie audiences heard Baby's monologue for the first time.

In the summer of 1987, Frances (formerly "Baby") Houseman is telling movie audiences about her experiences during and shortly after the summer of 1963 -- 23 years ago.

During that 1963 summer, she 1) was called Baby by everyone, 2) intended to join the Peace Corps and 3) hoped to find a guy like her Dad.

Shortly after that 1963 summer, 4) she no longer was called Baby by everyone, 5) President Kennedy was shot and 5) the Beatles arrived.

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Many Americans consider Labor Day -- September 2 in 1963 -- to be the end of summer, because most schools begin their fall term immediately afterwards. However, Mount Holyoke College, which Baby would attend, began its fall term on or shortly after September 23, 1963.

When Baby moves away from home and begins to attend Mount Holyoke, she henceforth will be called Frances (not "Baby") by practically everyone. Her father no longer will be the strongest influence on her life.

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Baby's monologue includes the following symbols:

* The name "Baby" symbolizes her apparent immaturity.

* President Kennedy symbolizes Baby's father Jack Houseman.

* The Beatles symbolize the Kellerman's dancers who influenced Baby.

* The Peace Corps symbolizes Baby's idealistic aspirations.

These symbols in Baby's opening monologue foreshadow the movie's story.

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The name "Baby" symbolizes her apparent immaturity.

During the story, the people around Baby will recognize that she no longer is immature.

Her parents and sister will learn that she has acted on her sexual desires and has lost her virginity.

In particular, her father will recognize that she can disagree with him and turn out to be right.

Johnny Castle will recognize that she can and does act independently from her father.

Everyone at Kellerman's will recognize that she can confidently excel in public performance.

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President Kennedy symbolizes Baby's father Jack Houseman.

During the story, Baby will lose much of her adoration toward her father.

Although her father will remain in her life, this perfect idol will be gone from her life.

She will begin to consider whether her life's romantic partner should be a different kind of man.

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The Beatles symbolize the Kellerman's dancers who influence Baby.

A group of young, fun-loving, talented artists will make a huge impact on Baby.

Baby will transfer much of her adoration from her father to these artists.

She will select her "favorite Beatle" (Johnny Castle) as a special object of infatuation.

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The Peace Corps symbolizes Baby's idealistic aspirations.

The story will portray Baby as idealistic -- as living her life to help others.

The story will portray Baby as dealing with complex consequences of her idealism.

Despite such consequences, Baby will remain true to her idealism at the story's end.

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Looking back from the summer of 1987, Frances ("Baby") Houseman knows the story that she intends to tell the movie audience about her summer of 1963. In this opening monologue, she foreshadows the story that the movie audience is about to watch.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Jack Weston, the Actor Who Played Max Kellerman

The obituary of Jack Weston published by The Independent on May 9, 1996.

As both villain and comic actor, chubby Jack Weston excelled in ineffectual blunderers who are not quite as smart as they think they are and frequently come to grief.

As a hitman in Mirage (1965), he is heartlessly shot by his colleague when being used as a human shield by the hero, in Wait until Dark (1967) he is run down by the mastermind he and his pal plan to double-cross, and in Ishtar (1987) he is agent for two of the world's worst song-writers. His fine flair for comedy was showcased both in Hollywood and on Broadway (where he received a Tony nomination), notably in works by Woody Allen, Neil Simon and Alan Alda.

He was born Morris Weinstein in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925, and at the age of ten was enrolled by his father in Cleveland Playhouse after his schoolteacher had complained that the mischievous boy seemed happiest when play-acting. After serving as a machine-gunner in Italy during the Second World War, he studied at the American Theatre Wing in New York, stating "If someone would give me 80 dollars a week for life just to let me act that's all I'd ever ask."

After marrying actress Marge Redmond, he worked as dishwasher and elevator operator prior to his Broadway debut in the play Seasons in the Sun (1950), which preceded other small roles on stage and in the early days of live television.

In 1957 he and Marge decided to try Los Angeles where he was immediately cast in an episode of the television western Gunsmoke. It was the first of hundreds of television roles, including episodes of The Untouchables and Twilight Zone, and regular roles in the series My Sister Eileen and The Hathaways.

Weston made his film debut in Stage Struck (1968), and along with his villains in Mirage, Wait until Dark and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), demonstrated his fine flair for comedy in Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960), It's Only Money (1962), Cactus Flower (1969), A New Leaf (1971), and Fuzz (1972), a farcical account of police work which included a memorable sequence in which cops Burt Reynolds and Weston disguise themselves as nuns.

A compulsive worker and worrier, Jack Weston found the Los Angeles boring, and returned to New York in 1975. The following year he repeated on screen his stage role in Terence McNally's The Ritz, as a heterosexual male who, fleeing from would-be killers inadvertently takes refuge in a homosexual bath-house. With Richard Lester's frantic direction, what had been hilarious on stage seemed a forced one-joke farce on screen, but the same year Weston had a Broadway triumph with a leading role in Neil Simon's California Suite, starring in two of the four playlets. A self-confessed "hypochondriac, paranoid, nervous wreck", Weston and leading lady Tammy Grimes didn't speak to each other off-stage throughout the play's run.

Weston's association with Simon continued when he headed the touring company of The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, and in 1981 Woody Allen cast him as a sleazy personal manager in his play The Floating Light-Bulb, for which he received a Tony nomination (he was beaten by Ian McKellan in Amadeus).

The same year he starred on screen in Alan Alda's perceptive story of four marriages through the years, The Four Seasons, as a cantankerous dentist, and he played the same role in a spin-off television series (1984). His last stage appearances were in Measure for Measure and a revival of Paddy Chayevsk's The Tenth Man (1989), but for the last six years he battled with lymphoma.

Morris Weinstein (Jack Weston), actor: born Cleveland, Ohio 21 August 1925; married Marge Redmond (marriage dissolved), Laurie Gilkes; died New York 3 May 1996.