Moviereview:‘Dull, bland, paralysed’

November 1987

More than 30 years after release, ‘Dirty Dancing’ remains a firm favourite with many people – but movie reviewer Geraldine Comiskey didn’t think much of it at the time…

In the heyday of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, elaborate, drawn-out dance sequences were perfectly acceptable.

Cinema was still developing, and even if you weren’t fascinated by the dancing, you could at least appreciate the camerawork.

No such excuse could be made for ‘Dirty Dancing’, which is one of the blandest discharges to reach the screen. The story is so corny, it suffocates the cast. The dancing is good, but that’s the least we could expect, given the far superior performances of Astaire and Rogers.

Maybe if it was ‘dirty’, as the title suggests, it would be more interesting. As it stands, it’s the sort of film which could have been used to wean 12-year-olds off ‘Fame’.

The main character, ‘Baby’ (Jennifer Gray), is a pampered young girl who goes on holidays with her family to a ‘Hi-De-Hi’ style resort. It’s 1963 and apparently no-one has heard of rockn-roll, Teds, the Forties, the Thirties, or anything beyond ballroom dancing.

The motel has all the intrigue of an old Donny Osmond tune. The male staff are employed to chat up the daughters, everyone has to stick to a timetable, and the organised games are wasted on families with no small children. If it was a playschool, the kids would be screaming to go home.

But Baby stumbles on a disco on the premises which is out of bounds for guests. Here, she sees a more energetic type of dancing – a mixture of ballet and rock.

She falls in love with a professional dancer, Johnny (Patrick Swayze), and helps his partner by borrowing money from her unquestioning father and by filling in on stage.

Johnny teaches Baby to dance like a real pro in a few days and all goes well until her father finds out about their relationship.

Apart from a few entertaining scenes, such as the dancing lesson on a fallen tree-trunk, this film is paralysed well before the end. Rating: 1/5 - WEAK