It features one of the most iconic soundtracks...and one of the most memorable lines on the big screen. But there's more to dirty dancing than, well, dancing.
The classic story not only tackles themes of class. It also shows an illegal abortion.
"When I made it in '87, Roe versus Wade was in America, so nobody even knew...I had to explain to everybody what an illegal abortion was. They didn't know," explained Dirty Dancing writer Eleanor Bergstein.
She says the scene, which is set in the 1960s and was released in 1987- 36 years ago - is as important now as it was then.
"I put it in because the truth is, I thought this day would come. You know, people said, why is it, you know, now it's safe? We have Roe versus Wade. And I said, 'You'll see'.
"I put in a lot of civil rights things. I put in the social classes. I put in all those things because I never trusted that this day would not come.
"I think if you make a black and white documentary about illegal abortion, the only people who will see it agree with you before they come in. If you make a film that is full of beautiful dancing and wonderful clothes and beautiful girls, and Penny is always...I'm very, very concerned, always to cast my Penny, because she has to be a working class princess...she has to be beautiful, tender, honorable and working class. And then you see, if it happens to her, it can happen to anybody," said Bergstein.
The global appeal of the story of Baby's coming of age summer in the Catskills is now a stage show...and there's one line that live audiences can't get enough of.
"Nobody puts Baby in a corner. They go just wild!" explained Bergstein.
She said she wasn't aware that the line would become so iconic.
"When we did it, I came on set and the crew, who were my very dear friends, said, 'Eleanor, did you write this line?'. And...Patrick, said, 'You don't expect me to say it?'
Bergstein suggested he try it on just one take and not for the other takes, and the rest is history.
It was the film that immortalized Patrick Swayze as dance instructor Johnny. He died in 2009 of pancreatic cancer, aged just 57.
"Everybody talked about how talented and sexy and wonderful. he was. He was a great dancer and was wonderful actor, by the way, which he didn't get enough credit for," said Bergstein of Swayze.
"But the most important thing about him was that he was a very good man and he really wanted to be a good man. And he was that was the single most important thing to know about him."
Bergstein says the film's iconic soundtrack was taken from her own record collection.
"I picked myself from my old 45s and I wrote it against my 45, usually the B-side, because the songs that I loved and had been dancing to were the B side. Usually I wrote every line of dialog against a line of lyric."
Dirty Dancing in Concert comes to Thousand Oaks Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, November 21st.
