Dirty Dancing Reviews

Teenage titillation for girls, circa 1963. Orbach is a New York doctor visiting a Catskill Mountains resort hotel with his wife Bishop and two daughters, Grey--known as Baby--and Brucker. Baby, a teenage activist, is soon bored and goes to the off-limits employees' area, where the hotel staff are engaging in "dirty dancing"--bodies rubbing and undulating around each other to pulsating music. There she meets the hotel's resident swain, Patrick Swayze, who with his partner, Cynthia Rhodes, gives dancing lessons to the guests. Although they come from two different worlds, the two fall in love. Grey is Joel Grey's daughter and she acquits herself adequately. Swayze is a sexy dancer who can be sweet, suggest macho, and act a little. Of particular interest is Rhodes. Her part isn't large, but she is believable as an actress and spectacular as a dancer. One problem with the film is that it does nothing to endear the Catskill social setting to an audience; the inhabitants seem to be competing for awards in obnoxiousness. DIRTY DANCING produced a top-selling soundtrack album and the hit single "(I've Had) The Time of My Life."