Last night, the Tribeca Film Festival hosted an outdoor, under-the-clouds screening of Dirty Dancing in honor of the film’s 20th anniversary — and I had the time of my life last six months.The preshow festivities, though not quite as festive as they sounded on paper, proved ultimately entertaining: There was that moment when the crowd of a thousand (give or take one) turned on the trivia contestant who answered "Her sweater?" when asked what Baby (Jennifer Grey) carried. (The prize was two tickets to see Dirty Dancing the musical in London.) There was the realization that I’m not entirely comfortable watching dirty dancing in person — or sitting on the aisle when there’s the threat of group participation. And there was Lumidee, there to promote her "hit single" "She’s Like the Wind," walking through the audience and leading a group karaoke rendition of "Time of My Life."
Dirty Dancing producer Linda Gottlieb and star Kelly Bishop (Baby’s mother before she was Lorelai Gilmore’s) were on hand to introduce the film. Gottlieb talked about how "MGM turned down the movie, and so did 40 other people who I took it to," then told a tale that’s supposedly "never been told." Turns out Bishop had actually been cast as the hot-to-trot bungaloo bunny Vivian Pressman, but Lynn Lipton, the actress originally cast as Marjorie Houseman, "on the first day of shooting… proceeded to say, ‘You know, I have to have seven small meals a day, I have to eat every half hour." By noon, director Emile Ardolino decided they’d need to replace her if they wanted to stay on schedule and the $5 million budget. (You can see Lipton’s scenes on the 20th anniversary DVD, hitting shelves May 8.)
Bishop took the story from there. She’d just gotten off a plane, "fuzzyhair, essentially no makeup," when the director and producers paged her, stood her next to Grey and the late Jerry Orbach (best movie dadever), and just stared. "It was such a strange request to go completelyagainst the character that I’d been hired for that I thought I had tosay yes because it was so bizarre. I’m totally glad I didit… I have to tell you, we did have the time of our lives, and thoselast four days of filming the last shot of the movie, listening to thatsong over and over again, I never got tired of it. And apparently, youall don’t get tired of the movie, so I’m thrilled. Enjoy it again."
And I did, Ms. Bishop. More than ever before. I had just turned 12when the movie was released in August 1987. My mother — who’d laterspend $80 on the VHS — took my 15-year-old sister and I to see it six times in the theater. Back then, I got that Swayze’s Johnny Castle was yummy, but I didn’t feel it until last night. Good. Lord. That "Love Man" scenewhere Johnny first teaches Baby to move her hips? So. Hot. The kindahot that makes you stop and think, I hope no one is looking at my faceright now. (They’re not.) And wonder if you really just whimpered outloud. (You did.) Thankfully, group participation was rampant — andwelcome — during the screening: People hooted at Swayze from entrance to exit. They spoke-along lines (down to sister Lisa’s "four, five").They — and by that I mean, I — found themselves mimicking, in theprecise directional order, Swayze’s four kicks to the stake that heuses to shatter the window of his car.
I’ve said it before on PopWatch,but it really is comforting to see how movies affect people in the sameway. Like when my EW colleague Allyssa Lee whispered "back muscles"during the "Hungry Eyes" montagetwo seconds before the woman seated behind us did. But it’s alsointeresting when you find yourself appreciating movies on a new level.When I was younger, I thought Baby’s post-"Love Man" gyrations, asJohnny walks away, were funny of course, but I didn’t get that theywere exactly what a teen girl would do if a dangerous (yet safe) guylike Johnny Castle had just awakened her sexuality. If you haven’t doneDirty Dancing in a while, you might want to.
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i have had to put up with a lot of abuse for absolutely loving this movie. so, hate me! i was 17 when i first saw it, and every once in a while watch it again. i don’t know what it is about it: probably the love story in my teenage mind has influenced me forever. no one will ever put me in a corner!
Looooove this movie. We use to have it on VHS (we totally taped it off tv. Haha, 80 bucks! That’s hilarious). I think that tape died eventually. And then I use to catch it on TV all the time. I finally bought it on DVD recently and fell in love with it all over again.
I agree that it wasn’t until I watched it recently that I, too, was blushing during the Love Man scene because he is one foxy piece of man! I’m just thankful my husband wasn’t home to see the look on my face because it was probably totally inappropriate. Even if this movie is on TNT for the fourth time in a day, I end up stopping whatever it is I am doing and watching it. A little sad? Maybe, but I have no regrets.
two things about this movie:
1) My Mom had the same green luggage as the Pressmans. I remember we used it when I was very small.
2) Apparently, in this movie Jennifer Gray looks exactly like my Dad’s long ago ex-fiancee.
So, there you go.
>then told a tale that’s supposedly “never been told.”<
SO not true, I remember reading about that back in the day – maybe in "Premiere".
The movie came out on tape when I was five or six and it was my first obsession. I can’t believe my mother supported it with weekly rentals and purchase of the soundtrack. I was in love with Patrick Swayze as Johnny. I knew at that age I wanted to marry him. I even renamed my Ken dolls Johnny. I must admit, I still get goosebumps thinking of Johnny.
I saw this movie a hundred freakin’ times when I was a kid.
Not-so secretly, I could watch it a hundred more. Also, one of my favorite soundtracks EVER.
Sigh… Iconic. Friends and I still quote “nobody puts Baby in a corner” when needed as a self-esteem reminder. I have’t watched the movie in years and looking at these clips… well. I don’t think I ever knew just how insanely hot they are. Or maybe I forgot (how would that even be possible?). Regardless, I’ll be getting that anniversary DVD and disappearing for a few days while I watch it back-to-back 47 times.
“I carried a watermelon” = pure genius! My friends and I quote that line whenever we’re feeling useless… Perks us up every time! I watch this movie at least once a year and every single time, I take something different away from it. I wish I could have been at last night’s screening…
I went to see this 3 times the week it came out. And 20 years later, there’s nothing more depressing than hearing “She’s Like the Wind” on the “soft rock” feed at work. Still my all time favorite movie though…
So funny. My best friend and I still say “I carried a watermelon” after we do something socially inept/embarrassing enough be recalled years later…
My sister and I definitely gravitate toward “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” for our go-to Dirty Dancing quote. If loving DD is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.
I saw this movie for the first time on HBO when I went to my friend’s house to work on a school projec when I was a senior in high school. After that, I made sure I did all my homework at her house so we could catch the daily broadcast.
I wish Conan would do a special about this. 10yrs ago when he did his plug to get Dirty Dancing re-released and read the script with Jerry Orbach were his best shows ever!
Well I was 44 when this movie premiered. 20 years later I still watch it at least twice a week. I am going back to the UK for a holiday in 2008 and have my tickets to the stage show. I admit to an absolute addiction, to both the movie and Patrick Swayze!
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