Swing Shift

It really is a shonda about 1984's SWING SHIFT.  The film that promised to be director Jonathan Demme's commercial breakthrough.  It is evident from the opening scenes, and how they transition.  A pervasive awkwardness that infects the entire movie.  Had I not been aware of the considerable behind the scenes friction among cast and crew, I might've chalked it up to sloppy filmmaking, or at best, an off day.  But in fact the film was recut by Warner Brothers as lead actress Goldie Hawn was displeased with Demme's workprint.  I would imagine because it wasn't the Star Vehicle she wanted.

The material was ideal for Demme's sensibilities.  Another slice of Americana ripe for his observant take.  MELVIN AND HOWARD  from four years earlier had sufficiently impressed the studio to hire him to realize Nancy Dowd's (who understandably opted for a pseudonym) screenplay, which considers the plight of a few women during WW2, right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.   Kay (Hawn) is a subservient housewife whose Naval seaman husband Jack (Ed Harris) leaves home to serve in the War effort.   Leaving Kay on her own for the first time.  Reluctantly she, along with her cynical neighbor Hazel (Christine Lahti), takes a job at a factory assembling bomber planes.  With time, she will find competence and confidence, even earning a promotion.  A "we can do it" Rosey the Riveter tale.

Along the way, Kay meets and eventually falls for one of her foremen, Lucky (Kurt Russell), who moonlights as a trumpeter in a jazz band.  She resists for awhile, but loyalty fades after a shared motorcycle ride home in the rain, and after he cooks her an omelette.    Has Kay found true love?  The sort maybe lacking in her marriage to the solid but boring Jack? A preference for the bohemian style over the All-American jock?

Apparently, Demme's cut was more about the women, which also includes factory co-worker Jeannie, played by Holly Hunter in one of her first roles.  The actresses are all fine, especially Lahti, who was nominated for an Academy Award.  Love her.  I've read that Goldie felt upstaged by her co-star and had several of her scenes removed, even soliciting another director to shoot new footage.  The love triangle was not as front and center in Demme's vision, which sounds favorable, as we've seen that story a few thousand too many times (especially involving military wives) and isn't handled particularly well here. 

Additionally, the men in this story come off as one dimensional, which may have been intentional from the beginning?  This is especially true of Fred Ward's character, a bar owner who pines for Hazel yet can't quite make a commitment. 

SWING SHIFT, despite its disjointedness, is still an entertaining and involving motion picture, though the more you learn of how the film was snatched from Demme and reshaped into its current so-so form, the more depressing it becomes.  I guess it makes the argument for ignorance being bliss, but What Could've Been is impossible to ignore.  I am now on a quest to see the lost version.