DIRTY DANCING: 4K Blu-ray Best Buy Exclusive (Vestron Pictures, 1987) Lionsgate

“One of a handful of crowd-pleasing flicks that are seemingly impervious to criticism…and while those just stumbling upon the film today without being wrapped up in the warm glow of nostalgia may end up wondering what all the fuss was about, taken on its own terms, 'Dirty Dancing' is still an immensely likable (if terribly clichéd) tale of first love.”

-        Peter Bracke

Can it really be 34 years since the late Patrick Swayze, and, now, virtually unrecognizable, Jennifer Grey took to the mambo in Emile Ardolino’s Dirty Dancing (1987)? Okay, now I feel old, having been a part of the original theatrical experience that absolutely mesmerized and dazzled an opening night audience. Swayze’s breakout role as Johnny Castle, the tight-fitted greaser with the proverbial heart of gold, to bring Grey’s wall-flowered ingénue, Baby Houseman to her sexual prime with the now, iconic line, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” literally brought down the house. A minor programmer from then fledgling – and now defunct – Vestron Pictures, Dirty Dancing skyrocketed to box office gold as an iconic puff pastry of eighties pastiche for ‘feel good’ fluff that the Hollywood of today has completely forgotten how to make. More shocking, at least then, the picture made dancing permissible again for men – the sissifying of the art ever since Gene Kelly hung up his taps, brought to a full-throttle, pulsating sexual throb by the sight of a shirtless Swayze, up to his rippling waistline in decidedly frigid lake waters, hoisting Grey overhead to teach Baby the proper balance and form during a lift. Swayze, classically trained as a dancer in his teens at his mother’s studio, regrettably, never fulfilled his dream to costar with his wife in a ‘Fred and Ginger’-esque musical of his own. Regardless, he is forever etched into our movie-land culture as this sinewy hunk du jour. It helped that, two years earlier, the actor had played a pivotal part in one of television’s seminal mini-series; North and South, reprising the role of soft-spoken southern gentleman, Orry Main in the second installment of that John Jakes’ franchise on TV just before Dirty Dancing debuted. And Swayze, for all his tough-as-nails posturing and dark sun-glasses male machismo at the outset of Dirty Dancing (my favorite line of his, actually directed at Max Cantor’s scummy waiter, Robbie Gould: “You just put your pickle on everybody's plate, college boy, and leave the hard stuff to me.”), cannot help but to remain the grandee of old school manly finesse. What made Swayze’s hunk so gosh darn appealing was that underlay of homespun toughness, rarefied in movie studs from any vintage, though particularly, the eighties where muscles ruled.

Dirty Dancing really is Patrick Swayze’s show, marvelous too for its Svengali-esque re-conceiving of Grey’s awkward and gawky ugly duckling with a Toucan Sam profile, miraculously transformed into a graceful swan in Johnny’s eyes, and, of course, through his expert tutelage in the bedroom and on the dance floor. Swayze and Grey possess that elusive spark of on-screen chemistry as intangible as it is essential to make all the quirky comedy in Eleanor Bergstein’s screenplay click. Bergstein based the story largely on her own childhood as the younger sibling in a Jewish family whose doctor/father preferred to vacation in the Catskills.  Ever since the ‘erotic’ dance sequence she had scripted for 1980’s It’s My Turn had been left on the cutting room floor Bergstein had become hell-bent on doing a ‘dance’ movie. Four years later, with success, she pitched the idea to MGM’s Eileen Miselle and producer, Linda Gottlieb, basing Baby’s character on herself and modeling Johnny Castle on Catskill’s dance instructor, Michael Terrace (on whom Bergstein had had a crush). For inspiration, Bergstein handpicked choreographer, Kenny Ortega, a disciple of Gene Kelly’s to stage the dances. As the Catskills had long since ceased to be a favorite retreat for affluent vacationers, Lake Lure, North Carolina and the Mountain Lake Hotel near Roanoke, Virginia were substituted as locations.

By now, Dirty Dancing’s featherweight plot should be predigested and regurgitated as part of North America’s cultural DNA - the summer of ’63, transformed into an idyllic coming of age story about 17-year-old Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman (Jennifer Grey), the favorite daughter of dad, Dr. Jake Houseman (Jerry Orbach) and by far the most introspective and forgiving of this family brood. Baby is vacationing at the fashionable Catskill’s resort, Kellerman’s. Its avuncular owner/host, Max (Jack Weston) is a close friend of her father’s. Baby’s distant plans include attending college in the Fall to study economics. Her more immediate plans…well. She’s bored and disillusioned, and, truth be told, a wee sexually frustrated. Her life has not exactly been enriched by her family’s affluence. Her superficially prettier elder sister, Lisa (Jane Brucker) is more interested in preening and teasing her hair than expanding her mind. The two have absolutely nothing in common. And while Lisa wants to fall madly for a boy of her yearning and years, Baby wants a real man to come along and sweep her off her feet.

Max rather hopes to inveigle Baby in a summer romance with his goofy-looking son, Neil (Lonny Price) whom he is grooming to take over the family business. Instead, Baby develops an almost immediate crush on the resort’s butch dance instructor, Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), leader of the proletariat entertainment staff. Housed in a crooked line of squalid shacks on an adjacent properly, Johnny and his ‘kind’ are generally frowned upon by Max as a ‘necessary evil’ to keep the middle-aged female clientele ‘happy’ – a word of varied meaning. Bored by the pre-arranged ‘event coordinated’ pabulum meant to amuse guests, Baby wanders off in the woods at dusk, encountering Johnny’s cousin, Billy Kostecki (Neil Jones). Offering to help him tote a pair of weighty watermelons to the staff quarters, Baby is introduced to the real life of this party - a bump and grind to the primal beat of rock n’ roll. Johnny is not amused. But he does give Baby her first lesson, dancing as sweat-soaked/straight-up sex with their clothes on initiation that leaves her blushing. Baby is mildly embarrassed and withdraws from the all-night bender, but later, discovering Johnny’s jaded dance partner, Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes), pregnant by Kellerman’s waiter, Robbie Gould (Max Cantor), magnanimously offers to get the necessary funds to help them both out of this very sticky situation.

Fearing parental judgment, but knowing her cache as ‘daddy’s little girl’ will get her what she wants, Baby does not tell Jake for what the money is to be used. The more prescient problem: what to do about Johnny and Penny’s prearranged professional engagement at the nearby Sheldrake Hotel. To forfeit the money is not an option. So, with time running out, Baby suggests she might substitute as Johnny’s partner. Penny is game and Johnny very reluctantly agrees. Although Baby proves an extremely awkward pupil, she nevertheless invests everything she has in learning the necessary dance steps to perform the mambo. In the meantime, Billy agrees to take Penny for her abortion and to look after her until Johnny and Baby return. Fate intervenes. Setting aside her anxiety, Baby takes notice of an elderly couple, the Schumachers (Alvin Myerovich and Paula Trueman), guests of Kellerman’s, curiously to have found their way to the Sheldrake. Returning to Kellerman’s after midnight, Johnny is informed by Billy that Penny’s backroom abortion was badly bungled. She is feverish and hemorrhaging. While everyone begins to panic, Baby rushes back to her suite, awakening Jake in the middle of the night. His medical expertise saves Penny’s life. Alas, he has mistakenly assumed Johnny to be the father, and furthermore, has lost all faith in Baby’s ability to make sound judgment calls. Vowing to keep the entire evening a secret from his wife, Jake plans to leave Kellerman’s immediately. But Lisa dissuades her father from this hasty departure because of her desire to be the center of attention at the hotel’s planned ‘talent’ competition.

Embarrassed by Jake’s prejudice, Baby returns to Johnny’s cabin to apologize. Penny is grateful for her intervention, however, and Johnny has already begun to recognize her courage. Moreover, he has fallen in love with Baby. The two engage in a dance that segues into passionate love-making. Knowing Robbie was responsible for Penny’s pregnancy, and moreover, he is infamous for whoring around with the middle-aged female clientele at the hotel, Baby does everything she can to dissuade Lisa from ‘going all the way’ with him. Assuming Baby is merely jealous, not only of her ‘friendship’ with Robbie but also of the fact she has suddenly become ‘daddy’s favorite girl’, Lisa scoffs at Baby’s suggestion. Against Jake’s direct orders, Baby continues to see Johnny on the sly, but sheepishly pulls him aside when she sees her father approaching. Believing Baby to be like all the rest, ashamed to ‘go slumming’ but just as hypocritical to use him for sex, Johnny and Baby have their first argument. Witnessing their tiff, Robbie confronts Johnny. The men scuffle and Johnny knocks Robbie to the ground.

Not long thereafter, one of Kellerman’s notorious ‘bungalow bunnies’, wealthy middle-aged viper, Vivian Pressman (Miranda Garrison) attempts to engage Johnny for a ‘private lesson’ – code for an afterhours sexual rendezvous. Reformed by Baby’s love, Johnny turns Vivien down. So, she indiscriminately takes Robbie to bed instead (after all, any young stud will do). This seduction is accidentally witnessed by Lisa who has skulked off to throw herself at Robbie’s head, erroneously believing she has found true love. Alas, when Vivien leaves Robbie’s cabin at dawn, she also witnesses Baby departing Johnny’s room. Not long thereafter, Max and Neil reveal to the Housemans, Moe Pressman’s (Garry Goodrow) wallet has been stolen while he was playing poker with a few of the other guests. Driven by jealousy, Vivien accuses Johnny. As a few of the more well-heeled patrons at Kellerman’s have recently discovered their money and other valuables gone missing, Max, along with Neil, too keen to assume the worst about Johnny, immediately dismiss him. To spare Johnny his job, and unaware her confession will nevertheless result in his dismissal for ‘other reasons’, Baby reveals in front of the Kellermans and her own family Johnny could not have stolen Moe’s wallet because at the time of the crime she was with him in his bungalow and remained there all night.

Although Johnny is exonerated after the Schumachers are exposed as a pair of pro con artists, he is nevertheless dismissed from the hotel for this ‘fraternizing’ affair. At the end-of-season talent show, Jake is more disillusioned than ever. He cannot forgive Baby her indiscretion. Unaware of Robbie’s carousing, Jake offers an endorsement for Robbie’s plans to attend medical school in the fall. Believing Jake already knows the truth about him, either from Lisa or Baby, Robbie now casually confides to having impregnated Penny. Thoroughly insulted, Jake withdraws his offer. Despite having been ordered off the property, Johnny suddenly appears at the Houseman’s table. He challenges Jake’s classicism and liberates Baby from her corner seat, taking center stage to perform the closing ‘dance’ against the Kellerman’s objections. Sensing the couple’s infectious romance, the auditorium erupts into thunderous applause as patrons – young and old - decide to partake of this eclectic dance. Jake accepts Johnny as Baby’s boyfriend, the couple’s future uncertain as everyone enjoys one final spin around the dance floor.

It all looked good – on paper – except that a management shakeup at the perennially flailing MGM forced the project into turnaround.  Free to shop her script elsewhere, Bergstein was soon to discover zero takers on the outside, except for the fledgling Vestron Pictures. In a series of ‘firsts’, Dirty Dancing would be Vestron’s entre into picture-making and herald the debut of its director, Emile Ardolino, who had never made a feature before, but had won an Oscar for 1983’s documentary, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’. At a time when the average feature cost $12 million, Dirty Dancing’s paltry $5 million budget seemed like a safe investment to Vestron’s President Jon Peisinger - not enough to sink the newly amalgamated studio if the picture flopped, but just enough to lend credence to a possible sleeper hit, should Bergstein’s hunch play itself out. Alas, casting Dirty Dancing proved a minor ordeal as Ardolino was adamant about filling the two leads with dancers who could act, rather than actors who could learn to dance, or worse, flat-foots requiring a double, lit in half shadow, to conceal the switch. Jennifer Grey was first to be cast. An experienced dancer and the daughter of 1972’s Cabaret gris eminence, Joel Grey, her hiring created a minor difficulty when Ardolino announced his decision to costar Patrick Swayze. Swayze and Grey had not gotten on during the filming of Red Dawn (1984). And actually, Billy Zane had already tested for Johnny Castle, proving the right ‘type’ – physically, though quite unable to keep up with the more vigorous dance moves during his audition.

Reluctantly, Grey agreed to ‘test’ with Swayze, amicably finding their détente on the dance floor in an audition Bergstein would later describe as ‘breathtaking’. While Gottlieb and Bergstein were over-the-moon to hire Swayze, he received minor opposition from his well-intentioned agent who advised him not to accept the part. Swayze, however, loved the role and vetoed his agent. Of the various other casting choices, only two would remain a constant during Dirty Dancing’s preliminary phase: Broadway actor, Jerry Orbach (who had made himself familiar to TV audiences with a reoccurring character part on TV’s Murder She Wrote) and Jane Brucker (as Baby’s vacuous elder sister, Lisa). Bergstein’s initial plan to hire close friend and sex therapist, Dr. Ruth Westheimer to play Mrs. Schumacher fell through when Westheimer learned her character was a kleptomaniac. Bergstein was also to recast the part of Kellerman’s social director, Stan with Wayne Knight, and Mrs. Houseman with Kelly Bishop, after the original actress signed for this latter role, Lynne Lipton suddenly fell ill and was forced to withdraw. As Bishop had already been hired to play Kellerman’s resident oversexed rich bitch, Vivian Pressman, Bergstein coaxed Dirty Dancing’s assistant choreographer, Miranda Garrison to accept this part in her stead.

To suggest Dirty Dancing’s shoot was tight is an understatement, two weeks of rehearsals followed by a mere 44 days of principle photography with cast and crew sequestered at the Mountain Lake Lodge and Lake Lure Inn and Spa. Shot after Labor Day, 1986, cast and crew were exposed to some inhospitable weather - staggering 105 °F heat, stifling humidity and impromptu showers. As temperatures soared, casualties were incurred - fainting spells and bouts of dehydration. The production was also delayed when Patrick Swayze, having repeatedly tumbled while performing the ‘balancing scene’ on a log, suffered a knee injury that required immediate hospitalization. As the shoot moved into late autumn, Ardolino and his set designers were forced to spray-paint the turning foliage green, the unpredictable temperatures toggling from sweltering sun to just above freezing. Crew were shielded from these radically fluctuating conditions, allowed to wear whatever clothes were required to keep them warm. But Swayze and Grey were forced to strip down to light summer attire in order to perform their now iconic ‘lake rehearsal’ scene. Inspiring a sense of community as well as friendship, Bergstein encouraged fraternizing on the set, the line between actors and the characters they were playing, effectively blurred when after work gatherings turned into off-the-cuff disco parties, both dancers and non-dancers honing their terpsichorean skills in a spirit of playfully erotic interaction. Alas, Swayze and Grey were to reestablish their old mutual animosity as production wore on. Bergstein had to force them to re-watch their screen tests to regain that aura of ‘positive’ chemistry for their love scenes. Despite these delays, Ardolino wrapped his movie on Oct. 27th, on-time and on-budget.

Interestingly, the director’s rough assembly and sneak peek impressed no one, not even Ardolino and certainly not Vestron’s executives, who believed they had a formidable turkey on their hands. Almost half of the test audience failed to grasp the movie’s abortion subplot, while producer, Aaron Russo is rumored to have sarcastically suggested to Vestron exec, Mitchell Cannold “Burn the negative, and collect the insurance.” Instead, Vestron began shopping the film for a sponsor. Acne cream manufacturer, Clearasil offered a tie-in until they learned of the abortion subplot. As Bergstein unequivocally refused to cut this out to satisfy the sponsorship, Clearasil withdrew, leaving Vestron to promote Dirty Dancing on its own. As Vestron was primarily a video distributor, the plan now was to quickly premiere the picture for a weekend and then quietly pull it from circulation with a direct-to-video release shortly thereafter. Given the initial reaction from Vestron, Gottlieb’s level of expectation ebbed low as the official premiere on August 16, 1987 fast approached. With heavy hearts, Vestron, Ardolino and the rest of the cast and crew prepared to accept their raspberries in public. Ironically, they had absolutely nothing to fear. Audiences fell in love with the picture almost instantly. Not only did Dirty Dancing do repeat business, its word-of-mouth catapulted it into the box office stratosphere, earning $170 million worldwide, making it one of the highest grossing movies of the year.

Fueled by its pop-chart topping soundtrack, that not only included the Jennifer Warnes/Bill Medley crowd-pleaser, ‘The Time of My Life’ (weirdly, the third most popular song to be played at funerals forever after?!?) but also Swayze’s singing debut, ‘She’s Like the Wind’, Dirty Dancing’s dreaded Hiroshima-sized implosion never happened. The critics were more or less forgiving, their reviews ping-ponging from over-the-moon ebullience (The New York Times called it “a metaphor for America in the summer of ’63 – orderly, prosperous, bursting with good intentions; a sort of Yiddish-inflected Camelot”) to downright insidious and scathing (Chicago’s Roger Ebert eviscerating the “idiot plot” as “tired and relentlessly predictable.”). Nevertheless, Dirty Dancing would continue to break records. Its first VHS cassette sell-thru release sold a million copies at a rate of approximately 40,000 a month. As of 2005, in its various home video incarnations, Dirty Dancing continues to sell roughly a million copies per annum. It has since been listed in Britain's Sky Movies as the #1 most-watched video of all time, well beyond those impressive figures touted for the Star Wars trilogy, Grease, The Sound of Music, and Pretty Woman.

Good press and clever marketing can greatly enhance a picture’s reputation. But not all movies are worthy of the hype. Some calculably survive it. Placed in its proper context, Dirty Dancing remains a modest and enjoyable programmer, elevated by Patrick Swayze’s reputation as a gentlemanly hunk. This would continue to soar and acquire even more cache in the intervening decades. Indeed, Swayze is still considered one of the most amiable and ever-popular leading men of his generation. Above all else, Swayze had personality plus to recommend him and class. Both assets go a long, long way – much farther, in fact, than chiseled good looks.  Dear Patrick…he left us much too soon, felled by pancreatic cancer, age 57 in 2009. In viewing Dirty Dancing again, the picture is undeniably owed its overall staying power because of Swayze’s incredible vitality as a dancer, though moreover his genuine charisma – transmitted as unaffected, natural and as well-intended as the man himself. Emile Ardolino, who only directed a handful of movies, among them, Chances Are (1989) and Sister Act (1992) would never scale such heights again. Spun off into a tragically underwhelming TV series in 1988 (that lasted only 11 episodes) and a rather unprepossessing prequel, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (released in 2004, but set in 1958), Dirty Dancing remains a cultural touchstone from the whack-tac-u-lar eighties - a decade fraught with fun and fabulous ‘feel good’ flicks that made one glad to be alive and optimistic about the future. Viewed from our present-day dystopian movie culture, Dirty Dancing is a reminder of that exuberant, energetic and amply endowed epoch in American entertainment – a movie in which good solid talent working both in front of and behind the camera came together to create something escapist and magical. 

Perhaps it’s time to have the time of your life all over again – in hi-def.  Dirty Dancing arrives on UHD 4K Blu-ray via another idiotically pitched ‘Best Buy Exclusive’ steelbook. I say, idiotic, because exclusivity limits sales, and worse, encourages those with deeper pockets to buy out the Best Buy release and then repost copies on Amazon or elsewhere, selling at upwards of $70 a pop. I like Dirty Dancing. Just not that much!  Lionsgate Home Video, the custodians of this perennially revived slice of vintage Americana from the eighties has been in the re-re-re-reissuing phase of milking Dirty Dancing as one of its most obscenely over-exposed sacred cows in the home video industry with multiple reissues to make even the likes of Disney Inc. blush. We could almost jump for joy, except Lionsgate’s upgrade here, while an improvement over the standard Blu-rays, never quite reaches the upper echelons as a reference quality disc. Biggest overall improvement here is to grain structure, at last, looking indigenous to its source rather than just thick and chunky. Color fidelity improves too. However, save a few truly outstanding moments in which certain colors, like Jen Grey’s pink dress, are given the opportunity to pop, the palette here is mostly subdued. On the Blu-ray, those toned-down hues tended to clot, or rather, look muddy and inconsistent. In 4K, they register with a more refined subtlety.  Daytime sequences are impressive. But Jeffrey Jurs’ moodily lit and smoke-filled interiors still leave one wanting. Flesh tones advance and appear natural. Once again, Lionsgate has lopped off the original Vestron Pictures logo from the start of the movie. If it’s a rights issue, get the rights! Period! The new Dolby Atmos 7.1 sound mix is another reason get excited. Dirty Dancing’s top-heavy pop tune soundtrack sounds magnificent – truly, an upgrade worthy of your double dip.

As Lionsgate has included the old Blu-ray release with this new 4K package, we still get all the extras as before: a 30-minute retrospective with Bergstein and original cast members, Bonnie Timmerman, Miranda Garrison, Doriana Sanchez, Jesus Fuentes, Jane Brucker, Kelly Bishop and some of the Broadway musical revival’s cast weighing in on the ‘timeless’ magic of the original. There’s also 90 minutes of archival interviews with Patrick Swayze, Bergstein, Jennifer Grey, and, choreographer, Kenny Ortega, who was rumored to be first in line to direct a remake that, mercifully, has since fallen by the waste side.  Two optional commentaries enlighten further: Bergstein’s the better of the two; the other, misguidedly fluffy and featuring Ortega, Garrison and Production Designer, David Chapman and Costume Designer, Hilary Rosenfeld. None of the aforementioned really goes beyond the self-congratulatory gushing phase in their praise of the movie.  Nearly two-dozen deleted, extended or alternate scenes, some screen tests, and, three horrendously tacky music videos pad out the extras. Monumentally disappointing, the old tributes to Swayze and Jerry Orbach have been excised. Also, the rather silly, but fun ‘trivia track’. No swag this time around. The steelbook has some nice cover art, but otherwise, you’re strictly paying for the 4K upgrade here. Bottom line: Dirty Dancing remains the watershed moment in the late Patrick Swayze’s career. If you don’t already own it on standard Blu-ray, this 4K limited edition has its perks. Just don’t expect a quantum leap in terms of image quality and you won’t be disappointed. But if you’re buying from some third-party seller looking to cash in on the phenomenon…take my advice here. It’s not worth seventy-bucks!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

3