How many dirty dancing movies are there

Everything to Know About Cast, More

“Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” Decades after the original film’s release, Dirty Dancing is returning with a highly anticipated sequel.

The 1987 classic followed Frances “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) as she spent the summer with her family at Kellerman’s resort in the Catskills. During her stay, she falls in love with the camp’s dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze). Between romance and now-iconic dance routines, the story tackled real-life issues like abortion and classism.

“I believe the basic theme of the movie is everybody wants to be seen as being more than what they might appear to be at face value,” the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off actress told Women’s Day in December 2020. “It’s the idea that transformation is possible with the synergy that happens when somebody else sees something in you that you don’t see, or that you wish someone else could see, and that they don’t change you but the connection creates an opening, a possibility that we are all more than we thought we would be in that limited idea. ”

Grey went on to gush over how director Emile Ardolino captured her chemistry with her late costar, who died in 2009 after battling pancreatic cancer. The Dancing With the Stars alum shared a behind-the-scenes secret, revealing that it was actually her breaking character when Baby laughs in a rehearsal montage.

“When you see him tickling me, and you see how frustrated he was when he looks at me because I cannot stop laughing because I’m ticklish — and then as soon as someone tells you not to laugh it makes you almost anxious and you can’t stop laughing — there’s something about that realness of that moment being caught,” Grey added.

Dirty Dancing made over $214 million worldwide following its debut, but a sequel was never confirmed until August 2020. “It’s very early days,” Grey told Woman’s Day. “But I do know that it’s very important to me that certain things are represented, that life is not over and sexuality and pleasure and satisfaction and feeling very alive and excited about what’s coming has got to continue. It cannot be just for the young. It’s about how many times can we recognize that we’ve given up again on ourselves and that there’s more to be excited about, to discover about ourselves, and it’s not over until it’s over.”

While the Out of the Corner author will reprise her role, additional details about casting — and how the sequel plans to honor Johnny — have been kept under wraps. Grey previously praised her costar as “a real cowboy with a tender heart” after he passed away.

“Patrick was a rare and beautiful combination of raw masculinity and amazing grace,” she noted in a 2009 statement. “He was fearless and insisted on always doing his own stunts, so it was not surprising to me that the war he waged on his cancer was so courageous and dignified. … When I think of him, I think of being in his arms when we were kids, dancing, practicing the lift in the freezing lake, having a blast doing this tiny little movie we thought no one would ever see.”

Scroll down for everything to know so far about the long-awaited sequel:

Dirty Dancing sequel starring Jennifer Grey set in the 1990s is confirmed - full plot.

10 May 2022, 10:33

By Mayer Nissim

Baby comes out of the corner once more for a sequel set in the 1990s.

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When it was released in 1987, Dirty Dancing swiftly became a box office hit and a home video smash.

There was a better best forgotten spinoff Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights in 2004 and a 2017 TV remake, but the film is now getting a proper sequel, with Jennifer Grey reprising her central role as Frances 'Baby' Houseman and also executive-producing the project.

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The film was first confirmed in 2020, and we've now been given more details about the sequel, including what it will be about and when we're likely to see it.

The Dirty Dancing sequel will also be called Dirty Dancing. It will be directed by Jonathan Levine and will be set in the 1990s.

Like the first film, it will feature a young woman at the Catskills holiday resort who has a coming-of-age-romance, Deadline reports, with this story intertwining with the now grown-up Baby's own journey.

Dirty Dancing (1987). Picture: Alamy

The soundtrack will feature songs from the original film like 'Hungry Eyes', as well as '90s songs, potentially including the likes of Alanis Morissette and Liz Phair and even some even hip-hop numbers.

"The most important thing for us was having Jennifer on board," said Levine, who has also co-written the screenplay with Elizabeth Chomko.

"She is an invaluable collaborator. We’re going to try to involve as many people from the original as is appropriate. We want to be respectful in every way."

He added that the team is "exploring" the return of other actors from the original 1987 film, but one key player of course will be absent.

Patrick Swayze, who played co-lead Johnny, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2009.

Levine said: "This film exists in a dialogue with the original. We want to introduce this story to a whole new generation.

"That said, Johnny’s absence looms large over the story, so it’s a coming-of-age story but also a coming-of-age for Baby’s character in a way."

He added that "Johnny is a part of Baby's journey in the story" and that discussions would be had with Swayze's estate on how to incorporate him into the film.

Levine continued: "While the original Dirty Dancing has always been one of my favourite films, I never imagined I would direct the sequel.

"Through co-writing it, I fell in love with the characters (new and old), the world of 1990s Catskills New York, and the music, which will range from songs from the original movie to ‘90s hip-hop."

Jennifer Grey at the Captain Marvel movie premiere in 2019. Picture: Alamy

He added: "I can’t wait to collaborate with Jennifer to bring this beautiful story of summer and romance and dancing to a generation of new fans.

"And to the longtime ones, I promise we will not ruin your childhood. We will tackle the assignment with sophistication, ambition and, above all, love."

Lionsgate’s President of Production Erin Westerman, said: "Dirty Dancing is more than a movie – it's a cultural touchstone that continues to be a rite of passage.

"As we approach the next chapter, we knew we had to honor the depth, the relevance, and the heat of the original."

He added: "We've been lucky to have Jennifer as our guide and are thrilled to have Jonathan by her side at the helm, because everything he makes is textured and romantic – he always gives us goosebumps."

As well as the 2004 spinoff and 2017 TV movie remake, Dirty Dancing previously spawned a 1988 stage show Dirty Dancing: Live in Concert, with a CBS TV series airing the same year.

It also was adapted for the theatre in 2004's Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage.

Favorite movie. Dirty Dancing

America in the early 1960s. A high school student nicknamed Baby, who came to the resort with her parents, starts an affair with a young dance teacher. They rehearse a performance on a show for tourists together, but the girl's parents forbid her to communicate with the guy, since he is lower than her in social status and because they mistakenly believe that the dancer's previous partner had to have an abortion because of him. In the end, the guy is fired, and he has to leave the resort. However, on the day of the scheduled performance, he suddenly returns, enters the hall where the performance has already begun, and sees that his beloved is sitting at a table in the corner, “locked” by her parents on both sides. The hero throws them: “The baby cannot be driven into a corner,” and then takes the girl by the hand and takes her to the stage to dance the prepared number.

The 1980s in mainstream Hollywood was the age of "male" cinema. Action, thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy… Even the romantic films of that time were often intended primarily for male eyes, connecting not-so-handsome men with the most attractive women. However, there were striking exceptions to this rule, and one of them was released in 1987. There was not even a hint of a male point of view in this romantic drama - she looked at the world only through female eyes. And this made it a long-term, still popular hit. This wonderful picture was called "Dirty Dancing".

Novelist and screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein has always loved to dance, especially as a young girl, when her wealthy parents took her and her sister to the fashionable 1950s and 1960s resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. While the "ancestors" played golf, the girl danced until she dropped. She was the "queen of mambo", participated in dance competitions, and later, while studying at the university, worked as a dance teacher. So when she started writing professionally in the 1970s, she included in her first producer-purchased script, the romantic tragicomedy Now My Turn, an erotic dance scene between the two protagonists.

The 1980 film, however, did not include this scene. The producers considered it superfluous and threw it out of the text. It was a painful but important lesson: "If you want something in your script to survive, make it an integral part of the story." And Bergstein decided to dedicate her new script entirely to dancing - as well as illegal abortions.

Why were there abortions? Despite the fact that abortion was fully legalized throughout the United States only in 1973, as a result of the decision of the Supreme Court of the country in the case of Roe v. Wade. This decision was an example of so-called "judicial activism" - reshaping US laws not in accordance with the opinion of the people or their elected representatives, but in accordance with the position of appointed judicial officials. Therefore, the Roe v. Wade case immediately became one of the main stumbling blocks in American politics, and conservatives are still aggressively fighting to overturn it.

As a committed (though not radical) feminist, Bergstein did not want this. She well remembered the days of clandestine, often home abortions, often ending in tragedy. However, she did not intend to write a dark moral story that would only arouse the interest of those who did not need to be convinced of the justice of Roe v. Wade. So she decided to write a historical romantic tragicomedy, where the plot would revolve around passionate dancing, but would be driven by the events associated with clandestine abortion. As a result, the picture was supposed to turn out to be beautiful and loving enough to interest the public, and then through a secondary, but key storyline for the story, “slip” into the heads of the audience the idea that abortion should in no case be banned.

This is how the script was born, which received the quite natural name "Dirty Dancing" (as in the early 1960s, rock and roll, which was very frank at that time, was called). Its main character, Frances Houseman, was partly autobiographical—a naive, idealistic girl from a wealthy Jewish family who loves dancing and sighs for an attractive instructor who reciprocates her feelings. Eleanor borrowed the name of the girl from her sister, but the family nickname Baby belonged to the screenwriter herself. The prototype of the protagonist was Michael Terrance (real name - Michael Gutierrez), a prominent Broadway dancer and choreographer who once worked as a dance teacher in the Catskills and was among the first American popularizers of mambo, a dance style that was born in Cuba in 1940s and came to the US through Mexico.

In the course of the action, the permanent dance partner of the instructor had an underground abortion, which ended unsuccessfully, and the girl was deprived of the opportunity to dance for a long time, which opened the way for the Kid to the stage podium and into the arms of the protagonist. Further events developed according to the classic Romeo and Juliet scenario about the love of two representatives of conflicting worlds (in this case, rich tourists and poor servants), but, in accordance with the positive Hollywood tradition, they ended with a happy ending, not a tragedy.

Following the success of Saturday Night Fever in 1977, dance cinema in America experienced a brief but tumultuous renaissance, with hit films such as Glory, Flash Dance, and Free » (Footloose). All of these films, however, looked at dancing in terms of male passions and male experiences. So, when choosing an actress for the lead role in Flashdance, then-Paramount boss Michael Eisner ordered a survey of studio workers and find out which of the three main contenders they would prefer to “fuck”.

On the contrary, "Dirty Dancing" was emphasized by a female narrative with a discussion of abortion, a fixation on the heroine's relationship with her father and the love of a romantic handsome man and a naive "simple girl" (a classic cliché of female tabloid prose). Male producers were cold to such a movie, and the project was treading water until a high-ranking MGM employee, Eileen Misel, became interested in it. She brought Bergstein together with producer Linda Gottlieb (who actively participated in the development of the script and urged the screenwriter to use as much details from her life as possible) and tried to organize shooting at her studio, but she was soon fired, and the project again became homeless.

In search of a new home for the Dances, Gottlieb and Bergstein went to all the Hollywood studios and received dozens of rejections. No one wanted to make women's films, and even historical, dance and Jewish films (although the nationality of the heroine does not matter much for the action, it is still an essential script detail). Finally, Vestron, an independent studio based in Connecticut, which mainly dealt with video releases, but occasionally released films, became interested in the script. Vestron agreed to finance the film on the condition that the producers would meet $4.5 million and that the film's wide release would be very short. A week or two in the movies - and then all sales on video. Gottlieb and Bergstein had no choice, and their partners (Bergstein became a co-producer of the film) agreed to the conditions of tight-fisted Connecticutians.

By the time they signed with the studio, they already had a director. Emil Ardolino, Oscar-winner for his 1983 documentary about a dance teacher, I Want to Dance With Him, went to the producers himself and persuaded them to give him the job. Before he did not work on feature films, but he knew a lot about dancing and, thanks to his unconventional orientation, agreed with the producers that the hero of the film should be more beautiful than the heroine. The studio, by the way, objected to this, but the authors of the tape were adamant. They wanted to make a fairy tale for women, not a trivial love story between two exceptionally attractive people.

Since the prototype of the protagonist was "Latino" Michael Terrance, the producers initially looked for Johnny among actors with Mediterranean and "Latin" roots. But as soon as Bergstein saw a photo of Patrick Swayze from Red Dawn and The Outcasts and learned that he was not only a handsome actor, but also a professional dancer, she knew that Swayze needed to be hired immediately. And she was absolutely right - it's not every day you meet a Texan macho who loves women and ballet (Swayze inherited a love of dancing from his choreographer mother) and who played figure skating and American football at school. Later, the screenwriter admitted that only after meeting Swayze did she fully realize what Johnny Castle was supposed to be.

Swayze's Red Dawn co-star Jennifer Grey, also known for her supporting role in the teen comedy Ferris Bueller's Day Off, is cast as the main character. Like Swayze, Gray came from a musical family. Her father was Broadway actor and choreographer Joel Gray, Oscar winner for the musical Cabaret, and her grandfather was the prominent American-Jewish comedian Mickey Katz. From her family, the girl inherited an impressive nose, which was ideal for the role of Baby, but did not really like the actress herself. Later, she underwent plastic surgery ... and ruined her career, as she was no longer recognized and invited to audition.

It is worth noting that 26-year-old Gray and 34-year-old Swayze were ten years older than their characters, but they looked young enough that it was not conspicuous. They also did not like each other very much, as Swayze was highly professional and pedantic, and Gray was emotional and flighty, with seven Fridays a week. They did not like each other even during the filming of "Red Dawn", but on the screen and in the dance, this hostility miraculously turned into a romantic "spark". That's really true - from love to hate ...

The father of the main character of "Dancing" was played by Broadway and theater artist Jerry Orbach, the future voice of Lumiere in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" and detective Lenny Briscoe in the TV series "Law & Order". Animated voice actress Lynn Lipton was cast as Baby's mother, but she fell ill during the first week of filming and was replaced by Broadway artist Kelly Bishop, a future Gilmore Girls star who was originally hired to play one of the tourists at the resort. Since it was already too late to look for a replacement for her, the second choreographer Miranda Garrison took over her former role. The boss of the last and, accordingly, the main choreographer of the tape was Kenny Ortega, a student of the legendary musical star Gene Kelly, dance director in Madonna's Material Girl video and future employee of Michael Jackson and choreographer of the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Why did all the main roles in the film go to Broadway people or professional dancers? Because Ardolino didn't want a repeat of the Flashdance scandal, where lead actress Jennifer Beals "danced" with the help of multiple stunt doubles, one of whom was a man. Coming to feature films from documentaries, the director wanted to shoot really dancing actors, and not create characters by editing and shooting in the shadows or from the back (so that faces were not visible). In addition, Broadway performers were cheaper than famous Hollywood performers and were more industrious.

When looking for filming locations, the producers quickly discovered that they could not afford to film in New York State, as the locally required contracts with unionized workers and filmmakers were too expensive for a film that was filmed at a third of the normal rate for the time. budget of $12 million. So instead of resorts in the Catskills, the picture was created at two lake resorts in Virginia and North Carolina, where there was no need to get involved with unions and where workers were much cheaper.

As if trying to punish the filmmakers for betraying New York, nature unleashed a series of weather tests on them. Filming took place in September and October 1986, and in the early days there was a heat of 40 degrees Celsius, from which members of the group, forced to work in the sun, sometimes fainted. By the end of the filming period, the temperature dropped to almost zero, which made filming the dance in the lake life-threatening (the heroes rehearse support, what to do in the water is safer than in the hall - of course, if the water is warm). Also, filmmakers suffered from heavy rains, from withered grass (to make it look like summer, it had to be painted) ... And from the desire of Patrick Swayze to do all the stunts himself, which once, after filming a dance on a log, led him to the hospital (from a series of falls he his injured knee was so swollen that he could not walk).

However, filming in the outback, far from megacities, had some advantages. The main one was that the group living and working in the resort boarding house quickly and firmly became friends. Every night Hollywood had discos, and this helped the actors to get used to the roles and identify with the characters. Swayze and Gray, however, never became friends. On the contrary, the relationship between them worsened every day, and at some point the studio was afraid that the stars would not be able to finish shooting. Fortunately, the producers managed to set the couple in the right mood, showing the actors a screen test where their relationship had not yet been hopelessly damaged.

To immerse the band in the early 1960s, Bergstein played her favorite records during filming. When it came to composing the soundtrack, music producer Jimmy Yenner bought the rights to a number of classic hits from the writer's collection. He also arranged for the recording of several new compositions, among which was the ballad She's Like the Wind, composed and performed by Patrick Swayze. The actor wrote this song for the tragicomedy "Grenview, USA", but the composition was not useful to its director Randal Kleiser.

The picture's biggest hit (I've Had) The Time of My Life, played during the climactic dance, was composed and recorded as a demo track by former Franke and the Knockouts vocalist Frank Prewit. The film, however, did not use this version (in Swayze's opinion, the best), but a professionally mixed version performed by Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers and solo singer Jennifer Warnes. By the way, a few years later, The Righteous Brothers' classic Unchained Melody became the biggest hit in the film Ghost, where Swayze also played the title role.

When the film was completed, edited, and shown to the Vestron bosses, they unanimously agreed that they had paid for a piece of something stinky. One of the film's early viewers, producer Aaron Russo, even joked that the studio would make more money from Dance if they burned the negative and demanded insurance. The film's financial prospects could have been saved by Clearasil, an acne cream maker who wanted to run an advertising campaign with Vestron (who else would sell acne cream if not to young viewers of a teenage romantic film?). However, the owners of Clearasil demanded that all references to the abortion be removed from the painting, which was impossible to do. Bergstein made sure that abortion was the cornerstone of the narrative, without which the film crumbled like a house of cards. So the acne cream had to be abandoned.

At the very end of the film's release, the disillusioned studio also had to endure a conflict with the MPAA, which awards film ratings. Although there was no eroticism, violence or swearing in the film, the tape initially received an “adult” R rating - solely because of the “dirty” of passionate dances. Fortunately, the studio still managed to convince the association that "vertical sex" was not real sex, and on August 21, 1987, the film was released with a PG-13 rating.

The very first week of the release showed that the abundance of early negative reviews was due to the fact that the film was not being watched by those for whom it was intended. In just ten days, the tape, whose final budget was $ 6 million, earned ten million, and not due to a powerful advertising campaign, but due to numerous fans. When women and girls left the hall, they either bought a ticket again, or ran to call their friends and invite them to the cinema. Visually, narratively, emotionally, musically, it was an all-female film with no compromises for the men in the audience, and it acted like a drug on the audience. Professional reviews, however, were not too flattering, but this did not prevent the film from earning $ 170 million at the worldwide box office, becoming one of the biggest hits of the year and receiving an Oscar for best song.

And that was just the beginning. When Dirty Dancing was released on video, it became the first movie in history to sell over a million copies. In 1988, no cassette was as popular in American theaters as the Dancing cassette, and in subsequent years the tape sold only slightly worse, first on VHS and then on DVD. American television also fell in love with "Dancing", and they became the same frequent guest on the "blue screen" in the States, as in our country the comedies of Gaidai and Ryazanov. And when British broadcaster Sky Television asked female viewers in 2007 which films they preferred, Dirty Dancing came in first place, beating female hits such as Grease, Pretty Woman and The Sound of Music (in second place, by the way). , hit "Star Wars" - first place in a similar men's list).

The film was also lucky with the quotes – the phrase “Baby can't be cornered” became one of the most popular movie phrases of the 1980s. She appeared in an early version of the script and survived all the rewriting and improvisation, despite the opposition of Patrick Swayze, who considered her too stupid and vulgar. But, like many critics of the picture, he was simply not its target audience. And over the years, he appreciated this phrase and twisted it more than once in dark jokes about the cancer that brought him to his grave. It took him a long time to appreciate what the phrase meant to American women, who, even after the official victory of feminism, are often cornered or pushed aside - especially in Hollywood, which remains a male kingdom. And America will need many more films like Dirty Dancing to stop responding to the phrase about Baby and coal as violently as it was reacted to at 1987 - and how they sometimes react to it even now.

Film Dirty Dancing: photo, video, list of actors

American romantic melodrama about dancing and love. Directed by Emile Ardolino starring Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Jerry Orbach (Jerry Orbach), Kelly Bishop (Kelly Bishop), Jane Brooker (Jane Brucker) and Cynthia Rhodes (Cynthia Rhodes).

The plot of the movie "Dirty Dancing"

In the summer of 1963, seventeen-year-old Francis Houseman (Jennifer Grey) nicknamed Baby, a naive girl from a wealthy family, spends her holidays with her parents and older sister Lisa (Jane Brooker) in a family resort hotel. Everything seems rather boring to her: family breakfasts, lunches and dinners, endless bingo games, classes with the elderly. But in the evening, a couple of dancers perform in the common room. Baby can't take his eyes off them, they are so graceful and beautiful. Baby does not know how to dance at all, so he watches the couple with great interest.

One evening the girl decides to take a walk around the boarding house. She hears music in the distance and follows its sounds. So she accidentally enters the staff area and sees a waiter serving their table. He asks her to help her carry the watermelons, and together they go inside the servants' house. Everyone is dancing "dirty dances" there, the movements of young people are quite frank and sexy. Among the dancers, Baby also recognizes the couple she saw at the evening in the boarding house. She is very attracted to a young and handsome dancer Johnny (Patrick Swayze) . Noticing her gaze, he invites Baby to dance. Johnny shows her some fairly simple moves and completely fascinates her.

Johnny's dance partner Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) got pregnant by waiter Robbie, who refuses to help her in any way. Abortion is banned in the USA, but Penny has no other choice, because next week they will be performing at another hotel, the only way they earn their living. Baby asks his father Jake (Jerry Orbach) to lend her a large sum of money. Baby gives everything to Penny so she can have an illegal abortion. After the operation, Penny becomes ill, and Baby has to turn to her father for help. After learning where his money went, he forbids Baby from dating Johnny.

Johnny is already in trouble: he needs to perform at another hotel, otherwise he and Penny will lose money this year and will not be offered a job next year. None of the dancers can replace Penny, then Baby proposes her candidacy. Johnny only has a few days to teach Baby how to dance professionally.

Interesting facts about the film "Dirty Dancing"

Patrick Swayze both dances and sings in this film.

30-year-old Jennifer Gray convinced casting producers to cast her in the film by transforming herself into a naive 15-year-old in just 10 minutes.

Cynthia Rhodes , who played the partner of Johnny Penny, the wife of American singer Richard Marks a, known for his romantic songs.

The book that Robbie recommended to Baby - "Source" Ayn Rand .

Abortion was only allowed in the USA in 1973. Thousands of women die or become ill every year as a result of illegal abortions in America. Many people who performed clandestine abortions were often not doctors at all.

Max Cantor , who played Robbie, shared an apartment with John Lennon for a while. Max entered Harvard University but died of a heroin overdose at the age of 32.

Billy Zane and Sarah Jessica Parker auditioned for Dirty Dancing .

In December 2008, screenwriter Eleanor Bergsten admitted that the characters of Baby and Johnny are based on her own biography. Like Baby Houseman, Eleanor comes from a liberal Jewish family.