Dirty Dancing

My Love Affair With Dirty Dancing

 "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 came, 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..."

And so, with these lines and Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons' Big Girls Don't Cry in the background, begins one of my favourite movies of all time. After watching it countless times I could recite every word and re-enact every "dirty" move. The movie taught me some very important lessons: don't put my heel down, a lift is best practised in the water and carrying watermelons is hard, man. But it also resonated with me for several reasons.

I think I identified a little with Baby, not only because of her naiveté and her less-than-perfect nose, but because throughout the film she develops from a timid, submissive person into a self-aware individual who finds her voice and uses it to stand up for herself and what she believes in. By the end of her summer at Kellerman's, she finds her rhythm (quite literally), realises that the world can't always been seen in black and white and her parents don't always know everything. Indeed, through Baby's eyes the film challenges labels - rich, poor, virgin, whore, sinner, saint.

The movie also made me want to dance like its stars. From the moment I saw Johnny and Penny burning up the floor with the film's first mambo, I imagined crowds parting like the Red Sea and watching, mouths gaping in awe, as my partner and I take over the floor. I envied Swayze's moves - I feel the Maroon 5 song should have been titled "Moves like Swayze" - as much as I envied his six pack (which, in my opinion, should have been acknowledged in the film's closing credits).

The film is filled with iconic scenes. One of my favourites is the one in which Baby is introduced to the sensual and forbidden dancing of the hotel employees (the kind of dancing that "kids are doing in the basements back home"). The freedom and self-confidence expressed through the dancing is thrilling and with Do You Love Me by The Contours and Otis Redding's Love Man playing in the background, it makes you want to get up and join them. Plus Baby's initial stiffness when she joins Johnny on the dance floor is hilarious - we've all experienced that kind of awkwardness.

The final scene has to be one of the best in film history. I mean, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner"? Damn right! Then Johnny takes over the stage, beckons Baby with that finger and "that" look as the opening bars of I've had the time of my life start before the beat drops and the magic happens. The climax of the scene is obviously when Baby successfully manages the lift, a metaphor for her newfound self-confidence and trust in Johnny. Even Baby's pretentious father removes the stick from his ass and gets into the groove alongside the other "undesirables".

 

Source: quotesgram.com

While Kellerman's is meant to be located in Upstate New York, Mountain Lake Hotel, where the movie was filmed, is in fact located in Virginia. A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to visit Mountain Lake, although I was saddened to see an gaping hole where the lake should have been. Due to a crack in the bottom of the lake, all the water steadily leaked out until there was nothing left. A far cry from the sparkling blue lake we see in the film. A side note: this was not the same lake in which the lift rehearsal was filmed; that scene was filmed at Lake Lure in North Carolina.

The hotel looks exactly the same (and the Kellerman's sign is still out front). Famous scenes from the film are marked, including the bungalow the Housemans stayed in, the gazebo where Penny provides mambo lessons and the pathway to the employees' cabins. There is also a memorial to Patrick Swayze, who passed away in 2009. We enjoyed dinner at the hotel - in the very same dining room that the Housemans had their meals. I was also lucky enough to purchase a piece of memorabilia from the film: a milk jug that was used on set - and I have the certificate of authenticity to prove it. It reads:

"I certify this tableware was used in the filming of the movie Dirty Dancing in September 1986 at Mountain Lake Hotel in Pembroke, Virginia."

The film was released in August 1987 which makes it 29 years old this year. Despite being a low-budget film and initially rejected by audiences, it soon became a classic and one that continues to be enjoyed around the world. In fact, I'm watching my special ultimate deluxe edition of the film as I type...


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