SWING SHIFT

year: 1984 cast: Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Christine Lahti, Fred Ward, Ed Harris rating: **1/2

Centers on a housewife whose husband goes to war after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Thus Goldie Hawn is called, along with many other women, to aid in the war effort by working in a bomber factory.

Christine Lahti steals scenes as her outgoing, lusty best friend. And Kurt Russell is a trumpet playing player named "Lucky," who doesn't have to fight the war because of a heart condition... which doesn't keep him from playing trumpet all night, drinking, chain smoking, and having an affair with the wife of a fighting soldier.

According to Jonathan Demme, the movie was ruined in the editing room, making it more of a standard romantic comedy than a character-study of women working in factories. And while SWING SHIFT is a somewhat entertaining time-waster, it could have been much better centering more on Hawn and Lahti than the  uninteresting Hawn/Russell romance.

At the very end, when Hawn and Lahti look back upon their friendship... and when all the factory ladies reflect upon their first day on the job... the audience wishes there was more of that to experience.