"Burn the negative, and collect the insurance."

Rating: 7/10 (18 June 2010)

The traditional Hollywood musical, generally based upon a Broadway show, went into something of a decline in the late seventies and eighties, but this period also saw the rise of a new type of musical based upon dance and pop music; "Saturday Night Fever" and its sequel "Staying Alive", "Grease", "Fame" and "Flashdance" are all examples. Most of these films ("Grease" being an exception) differ from the traditional musical in that the characters do not normally sing except in situations where people would sing in real life.
"Dirty Dancing" is another film of this type. It is set during the summer of 1963, a date which here carries a certain significance. The late fifties and early sixties, the period immediately preceding the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam war, are often seen as America's age of lost innocence, a view reflected in other nostalgic movies from the seventies and eighties such as "American Graffiti", "Grease" and "Diner".
The film tells the story of the Housemans, an affluent Jewish family from New York, spending their summer vacation at a resort in the Catskill Mountains. In particular it tells the story of their 17-year-old daughter Baby and Johnny, a dance instructor working at the resort. (Baby's real name is Frances, although we don't find this out until well into the film). Much of the running time is taken up by dance scenes, and the film is sometimes dismissed as a "feelgood movie". Although much of the music is of a cheerful nature and the film has an optimistic ending, I feel that there is more to it than that. The word "feelgood" suggests something shallow, whereas "Dirty Dancing" treats some rather deeper themes than is normal in pop-and-dance musicals.
One of these themes is that of social class. Here in Britain, we tend to analyse class differences in excruciating detail (not only in the cinema, but in the theatre, on television and in literature too), but in America Hollywood often glosses over the subject. Here, however, it is brought more to the fore. The Housemans are middle-class, Johnny and the rest of the entertainment staff are working-class. Even within the resort there are class differences; some of the staff are middle-class students working in the vacation to fund their university courses, and they are permitted to fraternise with the guests much more than the entertainers. Baby's family disapprove of her relationship with Johnny, but have no objection to her older sister Lisa dating Robbie, a waiter in the holidays but a medical student in term-time.
A second theme is that of the relationship between the generations, specifically father-daughter relationships. (Baby's mother plays a less important role in the film). Baby's father Jake, a successful doctor, is a political liberal who supports all the right progressive causes. Baby is planning to study the economics of underdeveloped countries at university and then enter the Peace Corps, and there is a strong implication that this future is one that has been mapped out for her by her family, not chosen by herself. Even her name is taken from that of Frances Perkins, the first woman in the U.S. Cabinet. Despite his political liberalism, however, Jake is much more conservative when it comes to family matters and is a rather authoritarian father. The title of the film reflects the older generation's disapproval of the new styles of dancing popular among the young at this period.
A third theme, and a controversial one, is that of abortion. There is a subplot involving Johnny's dance partner Penny, who gets pregnant and has an abortion at a time when it was still illegal. Jake's disapproval of his daughter's lover is based not solely on social class but on the mistaken belief that Johnny was responsible for Penny's pregnancy. It turns out, in fact, that the real culprit was Robbie, a serial womaniser and first class cad; when Jake realises this he does at least have the grace to apologise to Johnny.
"Dirty Dancing" was made on a low budget, and initially the studio (the recently formed Vestron Pictures) did not hold out much hope for it; according to one story the producer's reaction on first seeing the finished film was "Burn the negative, and collect the insurance." It had no major stars; Patrick Swayze did not count as such in 1987. Critical reaction was lukewarm, and in some cases much worse than lukewarm; Roger Ebert complained of its "idiot plot". Yet was a massive success at the box office, proving that critics can't be right all the time, and remains popular to this day.
Part of the reason for its success was doubtless its nostalgic charm; nostalgia for the sixties has been an important part of American and European culture ever since 1970, or at least since 1973 when "American Graffiti" appeared. The film is, however, about more than just vintage pop music. It was the film that made a star of Swayze, although, strangely, its female lead Jennifer Grey never really had a comparable success in her later films. Perhaps she was a better dancer than she was an actress; although she is good at conveying emotion through gesture and facial expression, her lines are not always delivered clearly.
"Dirty Dancing" is also a sensitive coming of age drama about a young girl finding herself and discovering a strength of character she never knew she had. Certainly, part of its appeal is due to its straightforward morality of "be true to yourself" and "do the right thing". The final scene, where Johnny lifts Baby above his head at the climax of their dance, is one of the great finales of movie history. I am always surprised that it did not give rise to a sequel. (Unless you count the boring "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights", essentially a remake in a more exotic setting). 7/10