Swing Shift (1984)

Very well executed

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Please don't spend money on this.

Beautiful, moving film.

This is the movie that led to Goldie Hawn's romantic real-life involvement with Kurt Russell. I didn't find him to be the charmer he usually plays but their relationship is believable after he finally convinces her to acknowledge it. At first Kay resists his advances saying she's married but then after several months gives in and seems to fall hopelessly in love with him. Needless to say, her husband then surprises her by coming home unannounced. I won't give anything more away but I will say that I was not too thrilled with the ending.Goldie Hawn did a great job and manages to play her character with vulnerability as well as believability. Like I said, Kurt Russell is not his usual charming self but is still believable as the feisty musician Lucky. Great supporting work here from Christine Lahti who plays Kay's wild singer friend Hazel. Ed Harris plays Kay's husband and Holly Hunter also has a small role. Carly Simon sings the opening theme song. The vibe is there between them because it is real. But this movie just doesn't hold up in the long run. It's fun, but it's nowhere near what Russell and Hawn can do together.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

The story of Swing Swift was probably played out several thousand times during the World War II years. While the men went to war the women did their bit in industries to keep America's industrial machine running. No doubt they developed itches that needed scratching. One such was Goldie Hawn, the protagonist of this story.On Pearl Harbor Day Goldie was the happily married wife of Ed Harris, who's nice enough, but a bit on the thick side and a regular alpha male. Harris goes into the navy and Hawn who doesn't want to live on just his allotment checks takes a job in an aircraft factory. She goes to work with her neighbor Christine Lahti whom she and Harris never really socialized with that much, but now they become best of friends.An even better friendship develops with musician Kurt Russell who because gigs are getting fewer and farther between also takes a job in the same aircraft factory. He still blows his trumpet at some clubs in the wee small hours of the morning after the Swing Shift. He's also a quite legitimate 4-F due to a heart murmur.Try as she might Hawn is unable to resist Russell's persistence. Then when Harris gets leave and returns all the issues come to a head.Swing Shift which has a nice score of 40s era music which is my kind of music would never get a bad review from me if for that alone. But director Jonathan Demme really does well capturing the mood of the 40s when we were a people united trying to save the world from one nasty brutal tyranny. The women are shown to have a really tough time both mastering the defense jobs they were doing and taking a lot from the men still working there.As we all know until recently Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn were the happiest unmarried couple in the history of Hollywood. That comes right through in Swing Shift and that carries a great deal of the film.Christine Lahti got Swing Shift's only Oscar recognition with her nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She was one sassy woman who takes nothing off no one in the human race. It's also left her sad and a bit bitter. Before Pearl Harbor she was a nightclub singer and that world has left a mark on her. But she does have the right stuff in the end.Swing Shift is a marvelous film recapturing a bygone era of a truly United States of America.

An easy-to-watch look at the Rosie the Riveter culture during WWII, "Swing Shift" is nothing special but passes. Goldie Hawn is her usual self as housewife Kay Walsh, who goes to work in the factories after her husband Jack (Ed Harris) goes off to fight in the war. If anything weakens the movie, it's something that we only recognize in the 21st century: the fact that Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell met on the set (Russell plays her new love interest). Since then, stories of movie stars meeting on movie sets - and possible breaking up marriages - have become so commonplace that it makes our eyes roll.But the movie itself is pretty interesting. Maybe it's not any kind of masterpiece, but it's fun to watch. Also starring Christine Lahti, Fred Ward and Holly Hunter. Jonathan Demme was certainly demonstrating the talent that he would later bring to "Silence of the Lambs", "Philadelphia" and "Beloved".

When watching this movie, in the beginning I found it difficult to believe Kay Walsh really was Goldie Hawn. This Goldie-movie is not the most typical one, but the character sure has similar characteristics in her life than the other roles Goldie has done in her other, later movies. The way Swing shift differs the most from the other Hawn`s movies, is that this one seems to describe the time the events took a place: the time when USA was in the war with Japan and what happened to the lives of women and men in that time. So what I´m trying to say, there may be some historical value, too - not only entertaining meaning, but a telling purpose.