Dirty Dancing: The Keepsake Edition Review

• 10th Nov 2010

For all those who don’t know of or have never seen Dirty Dancing, this is an all dancing, fast paced, scandalously sexy woman’s favourite. A very common fantasy set in 1963 (although the film is unmistakably 80s) a young woman known as Baby played by Jennifer Grey, goes to a holiday resort with her perfect post war family only to land herself in a moral dilemma.

Penny, the female lead of the dance entertainment at the resort finds herself knocked up by a rogue waiter who coincidentally has his eye on Baby’s sister. Who’s going to take Penny’s place? Can Baby step up to save Penny’s livelihood whilst she goes away to illegally sort this problem out? Of course she can and of course she does and in the process falls head over heels for her dance partner Johnny Castle- the one and only Patrick Swayze- the man blamed for Penny’s way and appears as just a piece of meat for those randy women paying for private dance lessons. The film follows the story of a young woman growing up and into her own, learning that sometimes your daddy just isn’t the best man in the world and not to judge a book by its cover.

I have to say watching the re release of this 80s romantic classic drama was no chore for me. Although however much this film speaks to women, many men seem to loathe it. If you’re a fan of dancing, dancing dirty and romance- winner every time, however.

This re release comes with a second disc jam packed with extras for all those Dirty Dancing fanatics, giving a real insight to the actors (interviews, tributes etc.), choreography (alternative angles for dance sequences and interviews with the choreographers), location (production design interviews) and the production in general. There’s also a special feature just for those especially crazy fans out there (For the Fans). Unfortunately, however much Dirty Dancing is a guilty pleasure of mine, I aint no fanatic, to watch the second disc in its entirety is just too much.

Nonetheless, it has to be said the tributes to those that have passed since the original release in 1987 is nice. Most famously Patrick Swayze’s passing is particularly sad, however most real fans may be disappointed and should check out the biography channel instead of getting this especially for it. But for the extras in general yes, some of them do give a further insight into the world that is Dirty Dancing, carrying on this raunchy fantasy that could well have happened for some lucky folk at this time (probably with a different ending). The fantasy is the key to the success of this film, but, it has to be said the problems with interviews and behind the scenes features is when it suddenly dawns on an audience member that these characters, this place, this story is completely fictional. Regrettably most of these extras have this affect.

Robyn Bramzell