The introduction to Dirty Dancing famously announces, in Baby’s voiceover, that 1963 was “the summer we went to Kellerman’s.” As the opening credits roll, the Houseman family coasts down what looks like a New York State highway, on their way to that resort, an amalgam of the many noted Catskills resorts of the so-called Borscht Belt, popular summer getaways for members of New York City’s Jewish community. But despite the movie’s loving portrayal of a very specific time and place, the actual shoot took place far from the Catskills. Even if the filmmakers had wanted to film at the real Grossinger’s, perhaps the most famous Catskills resort, they couldn’t have: in 1986, amid financial difficulty, it was sold. (Brown’s Hotel, another such resort thought to be an inspiration for Kellerman’s, burned down in April 2012.) The stand-in for Kellerman’s was the Mountain Lake Hotel in Pembroke, Va.—which is still in operation, offers many Dirty-Dancing-themed packages and, this month, hosted a Dirty Dancing festival, complete with a log-dance contest.
(MORE: The Disappearance of the Borscht Belt Hotels)[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lwl0LO2VkU]