Above video at 2:15 has Patrick jumping off the stage and spinning with a bad knee.
In 1987, Dirty Dancing was the highest grossing independent movie ever made, grossing $101,531,267. Patrick Swayze fell off this log to the rocks 10 feet below, injuring his already bad knee. That held up the production of the modest 4.5-million-dollar dance movie for three days.
On the final night, Patrick had to jump off the stage for many takes with his painful knee. Finally, he told the director, “I’ve only got one more take in me, so tell the cameras to get it.”
The shot was completed, the movie was edited. The new producers told the financiers, who were new to film production, "Let’s show it to Aaron Russo, who produced Trading Places and The Rose, to get his opinion." So, a screening was set up.
One Dirty Dancing producer said:
“Russo sat in the front row and we all watched him watching the movie. We knew we had a good movie and proud of it. This screening would let the financiers know they had a good movie and they would push it.
"When the movie finished, Russo turned around in his seat, looked past us producers and said to the financiers in the back row, ‘Burn the negative and collect the insurance.’ Then he walked out of the room.”
Russo is a good example of why sometimes when should not take expert opinion too seriously. To think if they had done what he ordered, that great film would not have made history and made my heart jump to watch.
Ron