Dirty Dancing: Limited Keepsake Edition Blu-ray Review

Dirty Dancing: Limited Keepsake Edition Blu-ray Review In 1987, Dirty Dancing became a phenomenon. It’s not necessarily a noteworthy musical that stands out for anything in particular, but it does have a certain period charm that draws you DVD Ripper in to its schmaltzy big dance productions.

Set in 1963 to the backdrop of an Upstate New York resort, the film is the coming of age story of Frances “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) as she summers with her family. Quickly growing weary of her family’s boring daily rituals, Baby begins to explore the resort and the lives of it employees. This is when she comes across Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), the sexy bad boy dance instructor and the others “dirty dancing” at a late night party — grinding their bodies together suggestively to some way-cool r&b music.

A tossed in side story about Johnny’s dance partner and old girlfriend getting “knocked up” and needing to get an illegal abortion leads to Baby becoming Johnny’s stand-in dance partner. As Johnny gives Baby a crash course in ballroom dance, their relationship blooms into a summer romance that neither Baby’s father nor DVD Ripper Johnny’s boss would approve of.

The film is surely flawed; firstly in its odd mix of classic early-60’s rock ‘n’ roll and 80’s overproduced pop. The eighties tunes pull viewers out of the period. Secondly, there is an obvious cliché feeling when watching Dirty Dancing; good girl meets dangerous, bad boy, summer fling ensues, etc., etc. Still, the dance segments are sexy and Swayze and Grey are at their peaks. This is an 80’s date night classic, guys.

The packaging says “newly remastered” and I will assume that this edition of Dirty Dancing must be, given all the well known problems the original Blu-ray release of the film had. This 1.78:1 AVC/MPEG-4 1080p encoding still has that soft, grainy look that many films from the 1980’s suffer from and given Dirty Dancing’s low budget, it probably suffered even more so. Flesh tones, however, look natural and consistent, DVD Ripper shadow detail is nicely extended and there is no evidence of edge enhancement. This film will never become a go to reference release, but this seems to be a solid effort for a twenty-three-year-old film.