'SWING SHIFT'.....GOLDIE AS ROSIE THE RIVETER....AND THE PERILS OF ACTOR VS. DIRECTOR

 Swing Shift (1984)

     Entirely watchable, but considering all the lost opportunities here, a terrible waste of creative talent.

     'Too many cooks' became the operative phase for this film's production - too many writers taking whacks at the storyline and too many opposing points of view between the star, Goldie Hawn and the director, Jonathon Demme ("Silence of the Lambs", "Philadelphia")

     The film's fascinating premise came loaded with potential - the story of women recruited to work in armaments factories as their husbands, fiances and boyfriends went into the military and off to war in 1941, the start of America's entry into World War 2.

      Director Demme no doubt wanted an expansive view of this particular time and place, when women found themselves given newly acquired skills, strength, independence.....and paychecks. 

       Goldie Hawn, by then firmly established as an A-list movie star, wanted a film designed, as movie stars often did,  as a vehicle to showcase her own abilities as a dramatic actress. Hence her preference for script re-writes that centered around her up and down romantic relationship with a factory co-worker played by Kurt Russell.  An especially tumultuous affair this was,  considering Hawn's character had a husband (Ed Harris) who'd enlisted in the Navy as soon as Pearl Harbor erupted....and immediately shipped out to combat. 

       Hawn and Demme repeatedly clashed and films plagued with actor-director battles over competing visions usually end up with a neither fish-nor-fowl final product. 

       And to nobody's satisfaction or surprise, so it was with "Swing Shift". 

        There are some remarkable sequences in the first half of the film, detailing the whole new workforce world of factory life that women plunged into.....grueling, sometimes dangerous work conditions and the patronizing misogynistic attitudes and behavior of their male supervisors. But there's optimism too, as the women prove they're as able and driven in their jobs as men....and more than ready to assume leadership positions. 

       To its detriment and to Hawn's dictates, the bulk of the film centers around the angst-y romantic complications between Hawn, Russell and Hawn's neighbor, co-worker and new best friend, ably played by Christine Lahti. And at best, it's dreary, uninteresting soap opera level stuff. 

       All of the actors here acquit themselves well enough, but the film's most powerful and memorable scene has nothing to do with them. It arrives toward the end of the story.....the war ends and the factory bosses assemble the women to dismiss them from their now unneeded jobs. The bosses expect cheers but all they receive are cold stares; they've no idea they fostered a new workforce of fiercely self-reliant, take-charge employees who won't be so easily tossed aside. 

      Jonathon Demme took his 'A Film by.....' credit off 'Swing Shift' after entire sections of it were re-written, re-shot and re-edited without his participation. What remains is a weak, watered down and thoroughly mundane period drama, a pale shadow of what it could have been. 

      2 stars (**).