The Fans' Love Story: Encore -- Part 4

Continuing from Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

The cover of Sue Tabashnik's book
The Fans' Love Story: Encore

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The book's Chapter Eight is Sue Tabashnik's interview of Jim and Karen Myers, who worked, respectively, as the executive chef and the dining-room manager at the Lake Lure resort hotel at Mountain Lake, Virginia, while Dirty Dancing was being filmed in that location.

I will mention only a few aspects of this interview.

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The filming there took place in September, which was after the busy summer season. However, the hotel hosted a bridge tournament every September. Therefore, the hotel wrote into the contract with the movie producers that the filming could not interfere with the bridge tournament.

I wonder if one of the movie's card-playing scenes was inspired by the ubiquitous presence of this tournament. Several people -- including Jake Houseman and Max Kellerman -- are playing cards on the lake shore while Penny is demonstrating wigs.

Guests Playing Cards on the Lake's Shore

The other card-playing scene -- where Moe Pressman pulls out his wallet while playing cards -- was already in the July 1986 script.

Moe Pressman playing cards

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Filming the scene where Baby saw Penny crying in the kitchen lasted all night. Filming still was going on when Jim Myers came into the kitchen at 4 a.m. to begin preparing the restaurant's breakfast. The movie equipment occupied much of the kitchen space, and the kitchen workers had to be very quiet during filming.

I am surprised that the filming of these kitchen scenes, listed below, lasted so long.

Neil showing Baby food in the refrigerator

Baby sees Penny crying in a corner

Johnny picks up Penny and carries her from the kitchen

It adds up to only a few seconds.

Often Dirty Dancing tourists are allowed to see the movie's kitchen location, and they always want to see where Penny was crying. Sue Tabashnik was photographed on that spot.

Sue Tabashnik crouching down on the spot
where Penny was crying in the kitchen scene

Apparently there had been a table over the spot when the scene was filmed.

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Jennifer Grey's famous-actor boyfriend Matthew Broderick stayed at the hotel during much of the filming time. He impressed the Myers as a very nice guy. Jim Myers had a long conversation with him.

Apparently, Jennifer preferred that Matthew not watch while she was acting and being filmed. During those times, therefore, Matthew took the employees' children on fishing trips.

Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey

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The scene where Johnny and Baby practiced their lift movement in the lake was filmed in an unrestricted location. Many hotel guests watched. Karen Myers remarked:

… It was cold. I do remember that they had all these makeup tables and different kinds of tables set up on the beach, and as long as the guests did not interfere or come within a certain boundary they were certainly welcome to watch.

But they got kind of bored, I remember, because, as you probably know, with movie-making: it’s stop-start, start-again, retake, retake, retake, retake, lots of waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. The guests were real excited at first, and then they’re like, this is boring.

Of course, the guests did not realize that this boring scene would become famous.

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Many of the filming staff were noticeably homosexual, which caused a lot of talk among the local residents of this rural area.

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The Myers had lived and worked at the Mountain Lake hotel for six years, and so they knew the location very well. Since the movie was filmed at two locations -- the other was at Lake Lure, North Carolina -- they were amused by the locations switches when they watched the movie.

The first time we saw it in the theater, we didn't know what to expect. ....

It was really fun to go, "Okay, that's Mountain Lake. That's North Carolina. That's Mountain Lake. That's North Carolina."

They turn a corner, and they see Mountain Lake on approaching the corner and they see North Carolina when they went around the corner. That was kind of fun to see.

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Tabashnik's book can be ordered from various booksellers, including directly from its publisher, Passion Spirit Dreams Press.

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I will continue my review of the book in Part 5.