This blog discusses the movie Dirty Dancing, which was released in 1987 and starred Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. The articles discuss:
* literary aspects, such as characterization, motivation, interactions;
* the music and dances;
* the production of the movie;
* critical reactions.
While Marjorie and Jake Houseman are watching Baby Houseman and Johnny Castle doing their final dance, Marjorie remarks to Jake:
I think she gets it from me!
In the following video clip, Marjorie's remark occurs at 1:20.
Marjorie seems to imply that Baby inherited her apparent dancing talent from Marjorie. The movie audience has not seen, however, any evidence that Marjorie herself has any dancing talent. Marjorie has been seen in four dancing situations:
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1) Marjorie is participating in a class for beginning dancers conducted by Penny Johnson.
The Houseman family taking a class for beginning dancers.
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2) During their first evening at the resort, Marjorie and Jake are dancing to orchestra music. Marjorie's dancing is not remarkable.
Marjorie's unremarkable dancing with Jake in the ballroom
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3) During a later evening, some guests are dancing in the gazebo. Marjorie and Jake are not dancing, because they are waiting for an "a waltz" -- a simple and slow dance.
Marjorie: "We're waiting for a waltz"
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4) On the last evening, after Baby and Johnny have performed their dance, Marjorie is seen dancing with Neil Kellerman. Marjorie's dancing is a simple boogie -- not remarkable.
Marjorie boogie-dancing with Neil
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Marjorie's remark makes a bad impression that she is ditzy and vain. At that point she has seen Baby performing her dance for only one minute, but that short time has sufficed to see that Baby is performing rather well. Marjorie's apparent conclusion that Baby's performance is due to Marjorie herself seems absurd.
It's possible that Eleanor Bergstein intended to make Marjorie look ditzy and vain. The Houseman family seems to comprise two contrasting groups:
1) Lisa and Marjorie are ditzy and vain.
2) Baby and Jake are thoughtful and modest.
However, Marjorie's remark is said during the movie's happy ending. I think that Bergstein intended the remark to make a better impression about Marjorie, but Bergstein's intention went awry.
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Important context for Marjorie's remark was deleted from the movie. A few hours before the talent show, Marjorie and Baby had a serious conversation in which Marjorie compared herself to Baby. The conversation was filmed, but the scene was deleted when the film was edited. In the following video, the deleted conversation can be seen between 8:17 and 9:02.
Baby Houseman
Ma, please, you don't understand.
Marjorie Houseman
No, Baby, you don't.
I know about this. I really know.
When I was your age, I was in love with someone else before your father. And when it ended, it hurt so bad I thought I'd die of it, but I didn't.
And I didn't wreck everyone else's lives in the process either.
Here, Marjorie compares her own seventeen-year-old self with seventeen-year-old Baby. Marjorie too suffered a painful break-up with a boyfriend.
Marjorie's remark she she didn't wreck everyone else's lives either is ambiguous. This remark might mean
* Marjorie did not wreck lives, but Baby is doing so.
... or else it might mean ...
* Marjorie did not wreck lives, and Baby likewise is not wrecking lives.
I think that the second meaning is the correct interpretation. Marjorie is reassuring Baby that Baby will get through this personal crisis and that the Houseman family too will survive this family crisis. However, Marjorie also is suggesting to Baby that Baby's crisis is affecting -- albeit not wrecking -- the family.
Marjorie is helping Baby to understand her crisis with a proper perspective.
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My key point here is that in this deleted scene Marjorie compared herself to Baby. Although the scene has been deleted, we should use it as important context for Marjorie's remark, just a few hours later, that I think she gets it from me!
In that sentence, Marjorie's word it does not refer mainly to Baby's dance skill, but rather to Baby's emotional strength.
Marjorie and Jake both are aware that Baby is suffering from her breakup with Johnny. Although Johnny has disrupted the talent show and has taken Baby up onto the stage, the breakup continues.
Johnny's speech gives Marjorie and Jake a new perspective on Baby's recent actions. Baby has not been "wrecking everyone else's lives". Rather, Baby has been standing up for other people and has been teaching Johnny to be a better person.
Then, despite the emotional pain that Baby has suffered -- and still is suffering -- from her breakup, Baby focuses on dancing well and keeps a smile on her face. Baby makes the whole Houseman family proud of her.
Baby privately has stood up for and taught other people, and now she publicly is displaying grit and courage. In that regard, Marjorie sees her own young self in Baby and feels proud that she has raised Baby to become such an admirable young adult.
That is why Marjorie -- a mother proud of her daughter -- exclaims I think she gets it from me!
The dialogue in the movie Dirty Dancing mentions the merengue dance twice. Both mentions indicate that the merengue is a relatively easy dance -- a dance for beginners.
1) At the beginning of the movie, when the Houseman family is unloading their car, Max Kellerman says:
There's a merengue class in the gazebo in the next few minutes. The greatest teacher. Used to be a Rockette.
2) When Baby Houseman, Johnny Castle and Penny Johnson are discussing whether Baby might substitute for Penny in the Sheldrake performance, there is the following conversation.
Baby Houseman
I can't even do the merengue.
Johnny Castle
See? Penny Johnson
Johnny, you're a strong partner. You can lead anybody.
Johnny Castle
But you heard her. She can't even do the merengue. She can’t do it. She cannot do it.
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The Wikipedia article about the merengue includes the following passages.
Merengue is a style of Dominican music and dance.
Partners hold each other in a closed position. The leader holds the follower's waist with the leader's right hand, while holding the follower's right hand with the leader's left hand at the follower's eye level. Partners bend their knees slightly left and right, thus making the hips move left and right.
The hips of the leader and follower move in the same direction throughout the song. Partners may walk sideways or circle each other, in small steps.
They can switch to an open position and do separate turns without letting go each other's hands or releasing one hand. During these turns they may twist and tie their handhold into intricate pretzels. Other choreographies are possible.
Although the tempo of the music may be frenetic, the upper body is kept majestic and turns are slow, typically four beats/steps per complete turn.
In the social dancing of the United States the "empalizada" style is replaced by exaggerated Cuban motion, taught in chain ballroom studios for dances of Latin American origin (cha-cha-cha, rumba, mambo, salsa).
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The two dance captains of the German-language stage musical provide the following simple lesson.
The following lessons go somewhat farther.
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The following video shows skillfull merengue dancers dancing fast.
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.
When Dirty Dancing opened, The New York Times' movie reviewer Vincent Canby wrote a review , published on August 21, 1987, that was mostly favorable. He dismissed the story as silly, even "awful," but praised the movie as a good step forward in developing the genre of dance movies.
In their time, almost all forms of popular American music and dancing, from
the foxtrot and the tango through rock-and-roll and all of its variations, have
scandalized the members of an older generation, whose own sexuality had earlier
been liberated by tamer means. As music, lyrics and dance steps have become more
and more sexually explicit, fathers and mothers from coast to coast have felt
alienated, and worried that pop music was leading their children straight to
hell. …
This culture generation gap has produced its own Hollywood genre. Most of these films have been quickies on the order of Don't Knock the Rock (1957) and Twist Around the Clock (1962), but there have occasionally been more ambitious if not much better films (Herbert Ross's Footloose, 1984). Though music is the subject of each film, sex is the subtext. In the final reel, generations reconcile; initially stuffy oldsters end up rocking, rolling or twisting the night away, showing the young that, though creaky of joint and infirm of body, they can still do "it."
….
Johnny, a young man from the wrong side of the tracks, exemplifies the freedom expressed through a new and as yet socially unacceptable form of dancing. This "dirty dancing," a phrase used only in the film's title, features a lot of steamy body contact and pelvic thrusts, which unleash emotions supposedly left withered by mambos and cha-cha-chas.
Taking a formula that is itself creaky of joint and infirm of body, Eleanor Bergstein, the writer, and Emile Ardolino, the director, have made an engaging pop-movie romance of somewhat more substance than one usually finds in summer movies
designed for the young.
I suspect that one's responses to Dirty Dancing, to its period details, even to its state of mind, will depend on the associations one brings into the theater. What is undeniable, however, is a basic decency of feeling, shaped, in part, by the film's obligations to its optimistic genre.
Baby, as written by Miss Bergstein and played by Miss Grey (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), is no bubble-brained teen-ager, but a bright, inquisitive young woman who's on her way to being her own person. .... Baby's liberation comes through her forbidden association with the womanizing Johnny Castle, after his partner, Penny (Cynthia Rhodes), becomes pregnant and Baby agrees to substitute for her in a mambo demonstration at another hotel.
There's a really quite awful subplot about Penny's abortion, financed by money that Baby has borrowed from her conventionally liberal doctor-father, and about the arrogant young Ivy League fellow who is responsible for Penny's condition.
Given the limitations of his role, that of a poor but handsome sex-object abused by the rich women at Kellerman's Mountain House, Mr. Swayze is also good. He's even convincing when he must admit, in one of the film's lesser moments, that ''the reason people treat me like nothing is because I am nothing.'' He's at his best - as is the movie - when he's dancing.
The movie makes a lot of good use of period music, to which some not very evocative new songs have been added. The dancing itself, especially the dirty dancing, choreographed by Kenny Ortega, looks very contemporary, or, at least, as contemporary as Saturday Night Fever, but it has a drive and a pulse that give the film real excitement.
Though the film takes place in 1963, just a year after the twist was all the
rage, the twist itself seems already to have come and gone at Kellerman's
Mountain House. …
These anachronisms aren't especially important, except that Miss Bergstein has been so specific about the film's period. She seems to want Dirty Dancing to be seen as a fond goodbye to a comfortable, liberal American way of life before the country was radicalized by the assassination of President Kennedy and by the increasingly bitter anti-Vietnam War movement. That's loading a small movie with rather more than it can carry without a lot of highly detailed program notes.
Dirty Dancing works best when it's most direct and unpretentious. It has the kind of sweet simplicity that somehow always eludes John Hughes (Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off). Mr. Ardolino, whose background is in theater and in television dance films, doesn't clutter the film with extraneous, sentimental detail, nor even with too much colorful (and familiar) detail about life in your usual Catskill resort hotel.
I don't know Canby's personal opinion about the legalization of abortion, but certainly most people who do oppose such legalization would agree with him that the abortion subplot was "awful." On the other hand, people who advocated such legalization would praise that same subplot as a brave social commentary.
Young people who watch the movie for the first time now perhaps do not realize that the people who watched the movie when it came out in 1987 were watching a story that took place 24 years previously, in 1963. American culture had changed enough in those 24 years that the movie already was perceived to be a "period piece" about a previous social era. The changes included greater public frankness about the issue of abortion.
On the other hand, the first audiences perceived the movie to be a celebration of the already somewhat forgotten music and dancing of that earlier era.
Max Kellerman (Addressing Tito Suarez)
Do you have sheet music on this stuff?
Jake Houseman (Addressing Johnny Castle)
I know you weren't the one who got Penny in trouble. When I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong.
You looked wonderful out there.
Dialogue Johnny Castle
Nobody puts Baby in the corner. Come on.
Sorry about the disruption, folks, but I always do the last dance of the season. This year somebody told me not to, so I'm going to do my kind of dancing with a great partner who’s who's not only a terrific dancer but somebody who's taught me that there are people willing to stand up for other people no matter what it costs them -- somebody who's taught me about the kind of person I want to be: Miss Frances Houseman.
Spaghetti arms! Would you give me some tension, please?
You're invading my dance space. This is my dance space. That's yours.
Let's cha-cha. Don't look down. Look right here.
(Johnny and Baby mouth the lyrics of "Love Is Strange".)
(Neil Kellerman enters.)
Neil Kellerman (Addressing Baby)
Baby, taking dance lessons? I could teach you, kid.
(Addressing Johnny)
Johnny, my grandfather put me in charge of the final show. I want to talk to you about the last dance. I'd like to shake things up a bit. You know, move with the times.
Johnny Castle
I've got a lot of ideas. I've been working with the staff kids on a cross between a Cuban rhythm and soul dancing.
Neil Kellerman
Whoa, boy. Way over your head here.
You always do the mambo. Why not dance this year's final dance to the pachenga?
Johnny Castle
Right.
Neil Kellerman
Well, you're free to do the same, tired number as last year if you want, but next year we'll find another dance person who'll only be too happy ...
Johnny Castle
Sure, Neil. No problem. We'll end the season with the pachenga. Great idea.
Neil Kellerman (Addressing Baby)
Sometimes he's hard to talk to, but the ladies seem to like him.
See that he gives you the full half-hour you're paying him for, kid.
Song Lyrics
Spoken
Sylvia!
Yes, Mickey.
How do you call your Lover Boy?
Come here, Lover Boy!
And if he doesn't answer?
Oh, Lover Boy!
And if he still doesn't answer?
I simply say...
Sung
Baby, oh baby,
My sweet baby
You're the one.
Love is strange.
Lot of people
Take it for a game.
Once you get it,
You never want to quit.
After you've had it,
You're in an awful fix.
Many people
Don't understand.
They think loving
Is money in the hand.
Your sweet loving
Is better than a kiss.
When you leave me,
Your sweet kisses I miss.
Baby Houseman
Can I come in? Johnny Castle
I got a -- I guess it's not a great room. You probably got a great room. Baby Houseman
No. It's a great room! No, leave it on. I'm sorry about the way my father treated you. Johnny Castle
No. Your father was great. He was great. The way he took care of Penny. Baby Houseman
Yes, but I mean the way he was with you. It's really me it has to do with. Johnny, I came here because my father .... Johnny Castle
No. The way he saved her -- I could never do anything like that. That was something. The reason people treat me like I'm nothing is because I’m nothing.
Baby Houseman
That's not true! You, you're everything! Johnny Castle
You don't understand the way it is for somebody like me. Last month I'm eating Jujubes to keep alive. This month, women are stuffing diamonds in my pockets. I'm balancing on shit and, quick as that, I can be down there again.
Baby Houseman
No, it's not the way it is! It doesn't have to be that way!
Johnny Castle
I've never known anybody like you. You look at the world, and you think you can make the world better. Somebody's lost, you find them. Somebody's bleeding ....
Baby Houseman
I go get my daddy. That's really brave, like you said.
Johnny Castle
That took a lot of guts to go to him! You are not scared of anything.
Baby Houseman
Me? I'm scared of everything! I'm scared of what I saw. I'm scared of what I did, of who I am. But most of all, I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling for the rest of my life... the way I feel when I'm with you! Dance with me.
Dialogue Announcer
The Sheldrake Hotel is proud to present Johnny Castle and partner in Mambo Magic. Johnny Castle
Relax. Now spot a lead. Wrong way! Over here. Ready for the lift? Come on. Keep going. Keep going.
Johnny Castle
Now, the most important thing to remember in lifts is balance. Whoa! Whoa!
Baby Houseman
I got it now. So where'd you learn to be a dancer?
Johnny Castle
Well, this guy came into this luncheonette one day, and we were all sitting around doing nothing. And he said that Arthur Murray was giving a test for instructors. So, if you passed, they teach you all the different kinds of dances, show you how to break them down, teach them.
Baby Houseman
What?
Johnny Castle
No. Good. Don't look down. Look here. Good. And... Now, bend your knees and go up. Go, go. Good try. Now, you'll hurt me if you don't trust me, all right? Now, go, go. Go. Good. Now, I'm gonna go up. You know, the best place to practice lifts is in the water. Just bend your knees. And... go. Good. Good. Good. Now hold the position. Hold it. Good. Don't break! Don't break! Let's do it again. All right. One, two, three.
Baby Houseman
Oh, sorry.
Johnny Castle
Good. Keep ... No, don't. It's not too bad. One more time. Okay. Over my head. Go.
Now, the most important thing to remember in lifts is balance.
Whoa! Whoa!
I got it now.
So where'd you learn to be a dancer?
Well, this guy came into this luncheonette one day, and we were all sitting around doing nothing. And he said that Arthur Murray was giving a test for instructors.
So, if you passed, they teach you different dances, show you how to break them down, teach them.
What?
Good.
Don't look down. Look here. Good.
And...
Now, bend your knees and go up. Go, go.
Good try. Now, you'll hurt me if you don't trust me, all right?
Now, go, go. Go.
Good. Now, I'm going to go up.
You know, the best place to practice lifts is in the water.
Just bend your knees.
And go. Good. Good. Good. Now hold the position. Hold it. Good. Don't break! Don't break! Let's do it again. All right. One, two, three.
Oh, sorry.
Good. Keep-- No, don't. It's not too bad. One more time.
Johnny Castle
It's not on the one. It's not the mambo.
It's a feeling, a heartbeat. Don't try so hard. Close your eyes.
Two, three, four. Two, three, four. Breathe.
(Scene shifts to a new location.)
Head up. Lock your frame. Lock it. Look, spaghetti-arm.
This is my dance space. This is your dance space.
I don't go into yours. You don't go into mine.
You gotta hold the frame. Again. Frame.
Johnny Castle
You don't step on the one. You gotta start on the two. Find the two. You understand?
Baby Houseman
I told you, I never did any of these dances before. Johnny Castle
Now, it's one, two, three, four! One, two, three, four!
Now, when the music starts, you don't dance until the two. Got it?
Relax, relax. Breathe. Frame. Nope. Again. Ow.
Two, three, four. Two, three, four. Don't lean back. Lifting up.
Two, three, four. Shoulders down. Again. Concentrate.
And... Don't put your heel down. Don't put your heel down.
Baby Houseman
I didn't ...
Johnny Castle
Stay on the toe. Just listen to me. The steps aren't enough.
Feel the music.
Baby Houseman (Giving money to Penny)
Here's the money.
Penny Johnson
You mean, Robbie ... Baby Houseman
No. You were right about him?
Penny Johnson
Then where'd you get it?
Baby Houseman
You said you needed it.
Penny Johnson
Is this kid for real?
Johnny Castle
Yeah it takes a real saint to ask Daddy.
Penny Johnson
Thanks, Baby, but I can't use it.
Johnny Castle
What? What's the matter with you? You should take the money. Billy Kostecki (Addressing Baby)
I can only get her an appointment for Thursday.
They do their act at the Sheldrake on Thursday night. If they cancel, they lose this season's salary and next year's gig.
Baby Houseman
What's the Sheldrake? Billy Kostecki
It's another hotel where they do their mambo act.
Baby Houseman
Can't someone else fill in?
Johnny Castle
No, Miss Fix-It. Somebody else can't fill in. Maria has to work all day. She can't learn the routines. And Janet has to fill in for Penny. Everybody works here.
What, do you wanna do it? Take time out from Simon Says?
Billy Kostecki
It's not a bad idea.
Johnny Castle
It was a joke, Billy.
Penny Johnson
She can move.
Johnny Castle
No, it's the dumbest idea I ever heard of.
Baby Houseman
I can't even do the merengue.
Johnny Castle
See? Penny Johnson
Johnny, you're a strong partner. You can lead anybody. Johnny Castle
But you heard her. She can't even do the merengue. She can’t do it. She cannot do it.
Dialogue Max Kellerman
Aren't you dancing, Doc? Marjorie Houseman
We're waiting for a waltz.
Vivian Pressman
Hi, Max. Aren't my dance lessons starting to pay off? Max Kellerman (Addressing Vivian)
You look great, Vivian! Terrific!
(Addressing Jake and Marjorie)
That's Vivian Pressman, one of the bungalow bunnies. That's what we call the women who stay here all week long. The husbands only come up on weekends. Moe Pressman's a big card player. He'll join our game.
(Addressing Vivian)
Moe coming up on Friday?
Vivian Pressman
Friday.
Max Kellerman (Addressing Vivian)
He's away a lot. I know. It's a hardship.
(Neil Kellerman enters the gazebo.)
Neil Kellerman (Addressing Johnny)
Where's Penny? Everybody's been asking for her.
Johnny Castle
What do you mean, where's Penny? She's taking a break. She needs a break.
Neil Kellerman (Addressing Johnny)
As long as it's not an all-night break.
(Addressing Baby)
Come on, doll. Let's take a walk.
Song Lyrics
No lyrics, but music is playing for the dancers on the gazebo.
More than a week has passed since the Houseman family arrived at the resort.
Scene Description
Dialogue
Baby Houseman
Hi.
Billy Kostecki
How'd you get here? Baby Houseman
I was taking a walk.
Billy Kostecki
Go back.
Baby Houseman (Taking a watermelon out of his hands)
Let me help you. What's up there? Billy Kostecki
No guests allowed. House rules. Why don't you go back to the playhouse? I saw you dancing with little boss man. Can you keep a secret? Your parents would kill you. Max would kill me. (Billy and Baby enter the bunkhouse) Baby Houseman
Where'd they learn to do that? Where?
Billy Kostecki
I don't know. Kids are doing it in their basements back home.
Want to try it? Come on, Baby. Can you imagine dancing like this on the main floor -- home of the family fox-trot? Max would close the place down first.
(Pointing toward Johnny and Penny, who are dancing)
That's my cousin, Johnny Castle. He got me the job here.
They look great together.
Baby Houseman
Yeah.
Billy Kostecki
You'd think they were a couple, wouldn't you?
Baby Houseman
Aren't they?
Billy Kostecki
No, not since we were kids.
(Johnny stops dancing and approaches Billy)
Johnny Castle
Yo, cuz, what's she doing here?
Billy Kostecki
She came with me. She's with me.
Baby Houseman
I carried a watermelon.
(Embarrassed, whispering to herself)
I carried a watermelon?
(Johnny invites Baby to dance)
Johnny Castle
Bend your knees. Down. Watch. Watch my eyes. Good. That's better. Good. Now roll this way. Now watch. Look.
Song Lyrics
"Do You Love Me?"
It's the latest,
It's the greatest --
Mashed potato!
The mashed potato started long time ago
With a guy named Sloppy Joe.
You'll find this dance is so cool to do.
Come on baby, I'm gonna teach it to you.
Mashed potato, feel it in your feet.
Mashed potato, come on, get the beat.
And then they dance it through and through.
They look for records they can do it to.
They got a dance that was out of sight.
Doing "the lion sleeps tonight".
Now everybody is doing fine.
They dance alone or in a big boss line.
And they discovered it's the most man,
The day they did it to "Please Mr. Postman".
------
"Love Man"
I'm a love man.
Call me the love man
Oh, baby, I'm the love man
That's what they call me.
I'm a love man.
Six feet one; weigh two hundred and ten;
Long hair; real fair skin;
Long legs; and I'm out of sight.
There ain't no doubt,
I'm gonna take you out.
'Cause I'm a love man.
That's what they call me I'm the love man.
Make love to you in the morning,
Make love to you at night now,
Make love to when you think about it. ...
Love man -- that's all I am now.
I'm just a love man. ...
Let me tell you something.
Which one of you girls want me to hold you?
Which one of you girls want me to kiss you?
Which one of your girls wants me to take you out?
Baby Houseman
No. Economics of underdeveloped countries. I'm going into the Peace Corps. Neil Kellerman
After the final show, I'm going to Mississippi with a couple of busboys, freedom ride. Max Kellerman (Addressing the dancing guests from the stage)
This is our own Tito Suarez.
Neil Kellerman
Mambo! Yeah! Come on!
(Johnny Castle and Penny Johnson come onto the dance floor and begin dancing) Baby Houseman
Who's that? Neil Kellerman
Oh, them. They're the dance people. They're here to keep the guests happy. They shouldn't show off with each other. That's not gonna sell lessons.
Jake Houseman (Dancing with Marjorie, addresses Baby and Neil)
Hi, kids. Having fun?
Neil Kellerman (Addressing Jake)
Yeah. Actually, I've gotta excuse myself. I'm in charge of the games tonight.
(Addressing Baby)
Say, would you like to help me get things started?
Jake Houseman
Sure she would.
Song Lyrics
None
While Johnny and Penny dance, the band plays the song "Johnny's Mambo".
In this scene's dialogue, Max Kellerman remarks that, "Three weeks here, it'll feel like a year" -- indicating that the Houseman family's stay will last for three weeks. Since the stay's last weekend will be stated to be the Labor Day weekend, the stay's beginning can be deduced as about August 10.
Scene Description
The Housemans' car drives onto the grounds of Kellerman's Mountain House resort. We see the large, main building and a huge lawn. Guests who already have arrived are participating in various activities on the lawn. Stan the Social Director with a hand-held loudspeaker announces the various activities that are available.
The Housemans' car parks in front of the main building, and the Housemans get out of their car and begin unloading their luggage. The father is Jake; the mother is Marge; the two daughters are Lisa and "Baby".
The resort owner, Max Kellerman, approaches and welcomes the family. He already is acquainted with Jake Houseman, who has provided him medical treatment in the past.
Max Kellerman orders a young male worker, Billy Kostecki, to help unload the Housemans' luggage. Billy and Baby become acqainted in the process. He asks her whether she wants a job at the hotel.
The Houseman family goes to a dance lesson in the gazebo. The lesson is being conducted by Penny Johnson. Dialogue
Stan the Social Director
(Yelling through a megaphone to all the guests)
Ping-Pong in the west arcade, softball in the east diamond. All you Sandy Koufaxes, get out there! Complimentary dance lessons in the gazebo.
Lisa Houseman (Observing that someone else's large pile of shoe boxes is being taken into the hotel)
Oh, my God. Look at that! Mom, I should've brought the coral shoes. You said I was taking too much.
Marjorie Houseman
Well, sweetheart, you brought ten pairs. Lisa Houseman
But the coral shoes matched that dress.
Jake Houseman
This is not a tragedy. A tragedy is three men trapped in a mine or police dogs used in Birmingham.
Baby Houseman
Monks burning themselves in protest.
Lisa Houseman
Butt out, Baby. Stan the Social Director
Okay, we got horse shoes on the south lawn in 15 minutes! We've got Splish-Splash, the water class, down by the lake. We have the still-life art class. We got volleyball and croquet. And for you older folks, we got sacks! Max Kellerman
(Approaching, along with Billy Kostecki, the Houseman family and addressing Jake Houseman)
Doc! Doc!
Jake Houseman
Max!
Max Kellerman
Well, Doc, after all these years I finally got you up on my mountain.
Jake Houseman
How's the blood pressure?
Max Kellerman (Addressing Marjorie, Lisa and Baby Houseman)
I want you girls to know, if it were not for this man, I'd be standing here dead. (Addressing Billy Kostecki)
Billy, get the bags.
Billy Kostecki (Addressing Jake Houseman)
Right away, Doc.
Max Kellerman
I kept the best cabin for you and your beautiful girls.
Jake Houseman
Hey, thanks a lot.
Billy Kostecki (Addressing Baby Houseman, who is taking luggage out of the car trunk)
You want a job here?
Max Kellerman
There's a merengue class in the gazebo in the next few minutes. The greatest teacher. Used to be a Rockette.
Marjorie Houseman
It's his first real vacation in six years, Max. Take it easy.
Max Kellerman
Three weeks here, it'll feel like a year.
(The scene changes to the gazebo, where Penny Johnson is conducting a dance lesson)
Penny Johnson
One, two, three, four! Stomp those grapes and stomp some more! One, two, three, four! Listen to the music!
Baby Houseman
(Bumping into Mrs. Schumacher)
Sorry.
Penny Johnson
One, two three, four! Move your caboose and shake it loose! One, two, three, four! Start the train! Come on, men! Follow me into a round robin! Ladies, the inner circle! Come on, ladies!
(Penny shakes her breasts.)
God wouldn't have given you maracas if he didn't want you to shake them!
Okay now, ladies, when I say "stop" you're gonna find the man of your dreams. Stop! Now, remember, he's the boss on the dance floor, if nowhere else.
Song Lyrics None
Remarks
The Social Director never is named in the dialogue, but he is named as "Stan" in the cast list.
This scene shows various activities available to the resort guests. The Social Director specifies ping-pong, softball, dance lessons, horse shoes, swimming lessons, water-painting lessons, volleyball and croquet. The Social Director also mentions "sacks" for older folks, but I don't know that this is.
The Social Director mentions that these dance lessons in the gazebo are "complementary," meaning that they don't cost anything. Normally the guests had to pay for dance lessons.
When the Social Director mentions softball, he calls on "all you Sandy Koufaxes" to participate. Sandy Koufax was a professional baseball player who was Jewish.
Although the Housemans were unloading all their luggage in front of the main building, they subsequently stayed in a smaller building that was distant from the main building. According to Max Kellerman, this is the best cabin.
The conversation about the shoes begins when Lisa notices that some of the other arriving guests have brought huge amounts of clothing. This conversation indicates Lisa's obsession with fashion and beauty, but it informs the audience also that the guests dress up formally for many of the resort's activities.
The conversation between Jake and Max informs the audience that Jake is a medical doctor. Jake has treated Max in the past, although the circumstances will not be explained.
When Billy begin unloading luggage from the car, Baby too begins unloading luggage. Billy asks her whether she wants a job at the hotel. He will offer her a job as the magician's stooge.
Max mentions in the conversation that the Houseman family will spend three weeks at the resort.
Marge mentions in the conversation that Jake has not had "a real vacation" for six years." Marge and the daughters might have enjoyed vacations at a Borscht Belt resort within the past six years, however. A later conversation mentions that some resort guests are wives, so-called bungaloo bunnies," who spend continual weeks at the resort and who are visited there by their husbands only on weekends. In any case, this is Jake's first stay at this particular resort.
Max mentions that Penny Johnson, the teacher at the dance lesson in the gazebo, used to be a Rockette, meaning that she is a professional dancer. Baby participates in the class and thus comes to know that Penny is a professional dancer. Baby still does not know anything about Johnny Castle, the male dance instructor.
During the dancing lesson, Baby stands next to Mrs. Shumacher and even bumps into her. The audience thus begins to recognize her.
Baby looks uncomfortable, clumsy, inhibited and unhappy while dancing.
Penny tells her students that when she says "stop" the women are supposed to "find the man of your dreams." Penny subsequently says "stop" and grabs Jake Houseman. This reinforces Baby's remark in the previous scene (riding in the car) that she dreamed of marrying a man like her father. Later in the movie, we learn that Penny has fallen in love with a medical student, who will become a doctor, like Jake. Penny will come to admire Jake very much.
When Penny yells "stop," Baby ends up dancing with Mr. Schumacher. Thus the audience begins to recognize him.
The opening credits of Dirty Dancing are accompanied by the Ronettes singing the song "Be My Baby". The movie's heroine will be called by the nickname Baby.
The credits appear in cursive, shocking-pink handwriting. Although the handwriting's color is feminine, its angularity is masculine. The handwriting is a combination of feminine and masculine.
Behind the handwriting, young couples are dancing in an unfocused, jerky black-and-white. The dancers look ordinary -- not beautiful. In particular, the women have faces that are rather plain. Toward the very end of the credits, the audience sees a beautiful pair of breasts, but the woman's face is hardly seen.
Several of the dance movements show the women being bent backwards so far that their torsos are horizontal -- similar to limbo dancing.
We in the audience see only glimpses of couples doing "dirty dancing." The motion is slow and jerky. We see mostly only the couples' heads, not their entire bodies, and the movements are mostly straight up and down.
The credits inform us the movie is titled Dirty Dancing, and these slow-motion, jerky, dully-colored images give us only an initial, slight image of such dancing.
We do not see actual "dirty dancing" yet, because we are supposed to share Baby Houseman's surprise later in the movie when she (with us) sees "dirty dancing" for the first time.
