Swing Shift

This terrific wartime romance / friendship drama may have been an unpleasant chapter in the career of Jonathan Demme, but it was a high point for stars Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, as it was the project they were working on when they started their four-decade-long romantic relationship. This is one of those movies that's more famous for being recut drastically in post-production than for the film itself, which is too bad, as it's a really good movie. Swing Shift was one of the first pictures to showcase how America leaned on women during the war and then expected them to return to their traditional roles when the men came home. It centers on a group of California women who went to work at a local aircraft plant during WWII.

Goldie stars as Kay Walsh, whose husband, Jack (Ed Harris), enlists in the navy shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Soon after, Kay signs up to work in an armaments factory while Jack is overseas. There, she befriends Hazel (Christine Lahti), a nightclub singer who lives across the way from her, and Lucky (Kurt Russell), the foreman with eyes for her who moonlights as a jazz trumpet player. They all become good friends, and the women of the factory (including Susan Peretz, Belita Moreno, Sudie Bond, Patty Maloney, Lisa Pelikan, and a young Holly Hunter) become increasingly expert at their jobs. However, Kay's life gets complicated when she and Lucky strike up a romance.

Swing Shift was an original screenplay by Nancy Dowd (writer of Slap Shot and Coming Home and script doctor on a number of high-profile '80s pictures). When Hawn's production company optioned it, Bo Goldman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Rose, Melvin and Howard) was brought in to rewrite it. Ron Nyswaner (Smithereens, Mrs. Soffel) was then brought on to do further rewrites. Both of these writers had worked with Demme, who was hot off the critical success of Melvin and Howard. Like most everyone who saw that film, Hawn and her producing partner, legendary costume designer turned producer Anthea Sylbert, were impressed by the performance Demme got from Mary Steenburgen. They hired Demme for what was to be his first major commercial movie. But the behind-the-scenes stories in this movie are fraught. Apparently, Hawn and Demme clashed, and she was unhappy with his cut. She apparently hired Robert Towne to come in to write additional scenes, which Demme refused to shoot. He and editor Craig McKay left the project. The final film, recut by Gib Jaffe, is apparently less of an ensemble piece and more of a star vehicle for Hawn.

In the end, no one was very happy with the final result, and the movie bombed with critics and at the box office. Lahti, however, earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performances, which probably irked Hawn as part of the motivation for the reshoots was that many felt Lahti outshines her. Lahti does outshine her, but that's mainly because we don't often get to see Christine Lahti play a great role like Hazel, where she can really show what an amazing actress she is. Next to Running on Empty, this is probably her greatest movie role.

There is a low-rez version of Demme's original cut floating around out there, which I'll check out, but the released version, like so many unfairly maligned dramas of 1984, is far better than its reputation would have you believe. Much of Demme's regulars are already in place here, including McKay, Nyswaner, cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, and actors Charles Napier, Susan Peretz, and Roger Corman in a cameo. His future producing partner Gary Goetzman also appears as a band leader. The picture looks great, with wonderful period production design by Peter Jamison (Used Cars, Tin Men, At Close Range). The jazzy music also swings—look for Belinda Carlisle as a singer who shares the stage with Russell, who is very convincing with his horn player.