We'll fight harder, Frances, that's what we'll do

The following dialogue was filmed but was not included in the movie Dirty Dancing. The video does not play on blogs, so you will have to click on the following image and then click on the words Watch this video on YouTube.

Baby Houseman
Do you know what I'm scared of, Johnny? I'm scared they'll beat us down and they'll say we have our whole lives ahead of us -- that I'm going into the Peace Corp, and you're going dancing, and we don't know what we feel.

Johnny Castle
[interrupting] think we don't know what we feel

Baby Houseman
And we'll start thinking it wasn't such a big deal, and then everyone will be against us -- even us. What'll we do then, Johnny?

Johnny Castle
We'll fight harder, Frances, that's what we'll do. We'll fight harder.

The above dialogue is foreshadowed by dialogue that occurred previously in the movie.

* Baby had said that she was scared

* Baby had said she would join the Peace Corps

* Baby had said that her real first name was Frances

* Baby had told Johnny to fight harder

Because of those foreshadowings, I think that the above dialogue was in the original script. However, that dialogue was replaced in the movie by the segment from 5:44 to 6:06 in the following video clip.

I analyzed that segment of the movie in my previous article The Psychology of the Movie's Denouement. There I analyzed the segment from 5:44 to 6:06 as follows:

5:44 - 6:06

A close-up of the faces of Baby and Johnny as they continue dancing.

Johnny mouths the song's lyrics. Johnny is communicating to Baby that HE has had the time of his life with her. Baby reacts by looking up and smiling adoringly toward Johnny.

The movie already knows that SHE has had the time of her life, but now sees that HE too has had the time of his life and is even mouthing the long's lyrics to confirm this feeling of his.

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I think that Bergstein's "fight harder" dialogue was replaced at the insistence of Patrick Swayze.

In a previous article, titled My Speculations About Script Changes Made by the Swayzes and by Rhodes, I argued that because Swayze was not paid his due salary for appearing in the movie, he was compensated partially by an unusual ability to insist on script changes.

Swayze mentioned in his autobiography that he thought that the movie's story should have ended with Johnny getting together as a couple not with Baby, but rather with Penny. Because Swayze had that opinion about the story, he surely objected to the above "fight harder" dialogue, which indicated that Johnny and Baby (not Penny) would get together as a couple.

The 5:44-6:06 segment was (I speculate) an compromise between Bergstein and Swayze. The movie audience can interpret that ambiguous segment as indicating only that Johnny might -- but might not -- get together with Baby as a couple.

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Earlier that day, a few hours before the talent show, Johnny and Baby had parted from each other. They had not made any plans to get together later.

What changed?

Johnny came unexpectedly to the talent show and performed a dance with Baby.

Then Baby's father became informed that Johnny had not made Penny pregnant, and so Baby's father apologized to Johnny.

That was not enough of a change to justify Johnny and Baby deciding to get together as a couple. They did not even discuss such a decision before they began their "fight harder" dialogue.

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I speculate that Bergstein made a good decision by listening to Swayze's criticism of her "fight harder" dialogue and by compromising with him to replace that dialogue with the ambiguous 5:44-6:06 segment.

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See also my previous article titled The Psychology of the Movie's Happy Ending.