VINTAGE TREATS

Coming Soon: Freaks (1932) and Harold and Maude (1971)

DIRTY DANCING (1987) Dir: Emile Ardolino

Summer 1963 and Patrick Swayze is cool rogue dance teacher JonnyCastle working at Catskills, a holiday resort for affluent families and well-kept trophy wives. Francis “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) arrives sweet and unalloyed with Pollyanna views on the world. When Jonny’s dance partner is unable to take part in his next show and the threat of the sack looms, Baby steps in to the breach, despite not possessing any dance skill. Can a reluctant Jonny teach this novice the visceral requirements of “dirty” dance and will this forced partnership spell a stolen summer of love for Baby?

Along with other boogie flicks Fame (1980) and Footloose (1984), Dirty Dancing built on the appetite for high octane teen dance fare and has since fledged into a cultural nonpareil in its genre - dare I say, a bigger cult classic than Greece (1978)?

Swayze is in his most memorable role (but at a career best in Donny Darko) is the good-guy-perceived-as-bad in a film that deals with class, youthful promiscuity and forbidden love. Baby belongs to a superior class and it is only her youthful naivety that can open the doors and break down the precincts from her family and their park-owning friends to the under-class workers.

Amongst the dance and angst is a poignant examination of the father - daughter union and how that evolves when a daughter reaches womanhood. Baby grows up fast in her three weeks at Catskills and is desperate to cut the apron strings from her caring, proud father (the excellent Jerry Orbach). He’s a good man and only wants the best for his daughter; it’s easy to accept his horror at the greased-up T-Bird Jonny he sees in his Baby’s arms.

The climatic scene is worth waiting for and although predictable offers some unforgettable, iconic moments as it careens to the final embrace. Swayze announces “Nobody put’s Baby in the corner” – a line he confessed to hating, and swings her in to the final number. The moment Baby takes flight, in the arms of her beau, like a hatchling soaring from the safety of her parental nest, pitches perfectly with the paradigmatic Oscar winning hit “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”. The goose bumps will spin down your spine like a free-styling funambulist!

Verdict: Toe – tapping fun with some toe-curling talk, DD gets the girls reaching for their spandex and finding the nearest log. Strutting good fun.