Dirty Dancing

I adore the movie "Dirty Dancing." It has everything - song, dance, drama, comedy...and did I mention song? And dance?

I've watched this movie countless times and it just never gets old for me. Patrick Swayze is totally awesome as Johnny, and Jennifer Grey plays Baby to perfection. The casting and writing really makes this as much of a character study as it is a musical masterpiece.

So - Welcome to all my fellow Dirty Dancing fans. I hope you like this small tribute to a great movie.

Dirty Dancing is a 1987 muscial and romance filem directed by Emile Ardolino. The film starred Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, and Jerry Orbach.

Filmed at Mountain Lake in Virginia and at Lake Lure in North Carolina although the film was set in Upstate New York), Dirty Dancing was distributed by Vestron Pictures. The movie became a major hit after it was released, despite being a low-budget film with no major stars (at the time). The Dirty Dancing soundtrack is one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time, and it spawned several hit singles, including "She's Like the Wind," written and sung by Swayze; "Hungry Eyes" sung by Eric Carmen; and "(I've Had) The TIme of My Life", composed by Franke Previte and sung by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, which won an Oscar for Best Original Song.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Frances "Baby" Houseman (Grey) is vacationing with her wealthy, Jewish, Suburban New York family at Kellerman's, a fictional resort in the Borscht Belt in the summer of 1963. Baby's father, Jake, is resort owner Max Kellerman's personal physician and right away the family receives special treatment.

One evening, while at the family ballroom dance, Baby sees a dance demonstration by the resort's dance instructor Johnny Castle (Swayze) and his dance partner Penny. Johnny is a bad-boy rebel, part of the working class staff whom all the resort-goers treat like their servants, but whose good looks turn more than one female patron's head, including Baby's. Later that same evening, stirring music draws her to the staff quarters where "dirty dancing" is all the rage. This dancing is up close and personal, not the stiff formal style people from her parents' generation are accustomed to.

Then, while out on a date with Neil Kellerman - nephew of Max - Baby sees Penny crying in the dining room kitchen, and it comes to light that Penny is pregnant by Robbie - the same Robbie whom Baby's sister Lisa is dating. When she approaches Robbie about the subject and his plans to do nothing about the pregancy, Baby secures the money from her father to pay for Penny's illegal abortion. In her efforts to help, however, Baby becomes Penny's fill-in for a performance at the Shelldrake, a nearby resort where Johnny and Penny are annual performers.

As Baby becomes Johnny's pupil in dance, tempers flare and sparks fly between the two. But the stakes begin to rise when Penny's abortion is botched and Baby goes to her father for help, and he forbids her to have anything to do with the rest of Johnny's friends - he mistakenly believes that Johnny was the father and has now moved on to a 'greener pasture' in his teenage daughter - and the two young lovers must keep their romance a secret.

Events come to a head when Johnny is accused of robbing the husband of a female guest after he turned her down for sex. Baby reveals herself to be Johnny's alibi, which while clearing his name, ends up costing him his job for having a relationship with a guest. In the film's climactic scene, Johnny returns to the resort to perform the 'final dance of the season' with Baby, whom her parents see for the first time as more than their teenage daughter. Jake is also able to admit his fault in his accusation towards Johnny for 'getting Penny in trouble'.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Patrick Swayze - Johnny Castle

Jennifer Grey - Frances "Baby" Houseman

Jerry Orbach - Dr. Jake Houseman

Kelly Bishop - Marjorie Houseman

Cynthia Rhodes - Penny Johnson

Jack Weston - Max Kellerman

Max Cantor - Robbie Gould

Max Kellerman

"You know if it wasn't for this man I would be standing here dead."

Stan

* "My god it's Cleopatra. I feel like such an asp."

* "I finally found a girl exactly like my mother. Acts like, dresses like her. So I brought her home. My father doesn't like her!"

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.

Neil Kellerman: I have to say it. I'm known as the catch of the county.

Baby Houseman: I'm sure you are.

Neil Kellerman: Only last week I took a girl away from Jamie, the lifeguard. And he said to her, right in front of me, "What does he have that I don't have?" And she said, "Two hotels." [laughs]

Penny Johnson

* "Oh, come on, ladies. God wouldn't have given you maracas if He didn't want you to shake 'em."

* "Go back to your playpen, Baby."

Johnny Castle:

* "No, I mean the way he saved her. I mean, I... I could never do anything like that. That was somethin'. The reason people treat me like I'm nothin' is 'cause I'm nothin'."

* "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

* "I'm gonna do my kind of dancin' with a great partner, who's not only a terrific dancer; 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 wanna be."

* "It's not on the one, it's not the mambo, it's a feeling a heartbeat."

Baby Houseman

* "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, when I couldn't wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I'd never find a guy as great as my dad. That was the summer we went to Kellerman's."

* "Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you."

* "I carried a watermelon."