Dirty Dancing and some Dirty Tricks to Make Money

May 14, 2019

"Dirty Dancing" is a 1987 American romantic drama dance film written by Eleanor Bergstein and directed by Emile Ardolino. It stars Jennifer Grey as Frances "Baby" Houseman, a young woman who falls in love with dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) at her family's resort.

If you haven't seen it yet, probably any day you may encounter it in some of the cable channels. Don't loose the opportunity. If you saw it, quite probably you would like watch it again!

The film's score was composed by John Morris and dance choreography by Kenny Ortega. The soundtrack created by Jimmy Ienner generated two multi-platinum albums and multiple singles, including "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", which won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song, and a Grammy Award for best duet. The album became a huge commercial success. It went on to sell 32 million copies worldwide and is one of the best-selling albums of all time. In the United States the album spent 18 weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 album sales charts and went multi-platinum.

This is the track listing of the 1987 original edition:

"(I've Had) The Time of My Life" (Bill Medley, Jennifer Warnes) – 4:47
"Be My Baby" (The Ronettes) – 2:37
"She's Like the Wind" (Patrick Swayze) – 3:53
"Hungry Eyes" (Eric Carmen) – 4:06
"Stay" (Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs) – 1:34
"Yes" (Merry Clayton) – 3:15
"You Don't Own Me" (Blow Monkeys) – 2:59
"Hey! Baby" (Bruce Channel) – 2:21
"Overload" (Alfie Zappacosta) – 3:39
"Love Is Strange" (Mickey & Sylvia) – 2:52
"Where Are You Tonight?" (Tom Johnston) – 3:59
"In the Still of the Night" (The Five Satins) – 3:03

They made a lot of money with the movie and the soundtrack, but the record industry wanted more! So in 1988 they took a closer look at he movie and found some tunes not included in the original edition, releasing More Dirty Dancing (full title: More Dirty Dancing: More Original Music from the Hit Motion Picture). It resulted a total disaster. David Handelman of Rolling Stone gave the album one star out of five, calling some of the tracks "instrumental idiocies". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave it two out of five stars saying that the follow-up contained "nothing more than a pleasant collection of oldies and faceless MOR adult contemporary pop".

The track listing of this 1988 original edition is:

"(I've Had) The Time of My Life" (instrumental) (The John Morris Orchestra) — 0:37
"Big Girls Don't Cry" (The Four Seasons) — 2:25
"Merengue" (Michael Lloyd & Le Disc) — 2:16
"Some Kind of Wonderful" (The Drifters) — 2:33
"Johnny's Mambo" (Michael Lloyd & Le Disc) — 3:02
"Do You Love Me" (The Contours) — 2:49
"Love Man" (Otis Redding) — 2:14
"Wipe Out" (The Surfaris) — 2:12
"These Arms of Mine" (Redding) — 2:26
"De Todo un Poco" (Michael Lloyd & Le Disc) — 2:27
"Cry to Me" (Solomon Burke) — 2:23
"Trot the Fox" (Michael Lloyd & Le Disc) — 2:04
"Will You Love Me Tomorrow" (The Shirelles) — 2:39
"Kellerman's Anthem" (The Emile Bergstein Chorale) — 3:17
"(I've Had) The Time of My Life" (instrumental) (The John Morris Orchestra) — 0:55

In 2003 they decided to release Ultimate Dirty Dancing (full title: Dirty Dancing: Ultimate Dirty Dancing) and it contains every song from the motion picture Dirty Dancing sequenced in the order it appears in the film.

Then on October 15, 2007, RCA Records released a 20th anniversary edition of the soundtrack, containing remastered versions of the original album's songs (in a different track listing) plus additional tracks, as well as a DVD featuring promotional videos and photo material. Obviously, the edition is only of interest to hardcore fans of the film. Anyone else would be satiated with a copy of the movie and the original soundtrack album, which contains all the hits, plus the most prominent oldies from the film.

Finally, a TV remake of the movie was released in 2017, aired by ABC. In its original broadcast, the film was seen by 6.61 million viewers. It received negative reviews from a majority of critics. I share the one made by Mae Abdulbaki of theyoungfolks.com who gave Dirty Dancing a 3 (out of 10), stating "Remaking one of the most popular and beloved movies in the history of cinema feels almost disrespectful on many levels. Going into the TV movie remake of Dirty Dancing with a clear and open mind, I figured that if at least the dancing was good, then there was something to enjoy. However, the updated version doesn't even meet the lowest of expectations and blows past mediocre to land at downright terrible. The film is slow and dull, the lead actors have absolutely no chemistry, and the musical aspect doesn't add anything to the film."

The film closely follows the plot of the original film; although there are notable changes. The soundtrack features contemporaneous covers,
1. "Be My Baby" Bea Miller 2:44
2. "Big Girls Don't Cry" Karmin 2:20
3. "Love Man" J. Quinton Johnson 2:19
4. "Do You Love Me" Colt Prattes, Nicole Scherzinger & Johnson 2:45
5. "Fever" Katey Sagal & Prattes 3:21
6. "When I’m Alone" Johnson 2:44
7. "Wipe Out" American Authors featuring Lindsey Stirling 2:31
8. "Hungry Eyes" Greyson Chance 3:42
9. "Hey Baby" Lady Antebellum 2:24
10. "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" Scherzinger & Abigail Breslin 3:07
11. "Cry To Me" Seal 2:50
12. "They Can't Take That Away From Me" Debra Messing 2:29
13. "Love Is Strange" Breslin & Prattes 3:01
14. "They Can’t Take That Away (Reprise)" Bruce Greenwood 2:00
15. "She's Like the Wind" Calum Scott 3:25
16. "Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright" Sarah Hyland & Johnson 3:39
17. "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" The Cast of Dirty Dancing featuring Prattes, Breslin, Johnson, Scherzinger, Messing & Greenwood 5:07

WHAT NEXT? Maybe Dirty Dancing 3D?

May 15, 2019

2016 version

May 15, 2019

11 hours ago, teodz1984 said:

2016 version

2017, actually. I saw part of it; just a boring musical version of the original. Agree with critics: it's a meanless readaptation. As for the musical score, it's worth to get the album, it has some fine covers. If anyone interested, please PM me and I'll upload it.