Drama-Swing Shift

Beta Tape Swing Shift Adult Drama….11376…Color..100 min…Warner Home Video…Starring…Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Christine Lahti, Fred Ward and Ed Harris… There s a war on — and look who s manning the home front! The radio announcement is brief and dramatic: the Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor. The United States is at war. For Americans, the world is about the change forever. Men are going off to battle…and women are going to work. Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell star in Swing Shift, a vivid look back at the wartime conditions that stood society on its head — and a sensitive, romantic story of the good times and the bad times a whole generation will never forget. Most World War II movies follow the troops. Swing Shift is different. It stays home with the women and men in the factories that turned out the weaponry to turn the tide of battle: nearly 300,000 planes, 100,000 tanks, 20-million rifles and 41-billion bullets, all produced in large part by the round-the-clock efforts of 3 1/2 million female workers. Many, like Hawn s finely-drawn character Kay Walsh, have never held a wrench before — but you re never too pretty to learn. Christine Lahti, co-starring as Kay s sultry meighbor Hazel, proves that even a damnce-hall singer can handle a rivet gun. Russell plays Lucky Lockhart, the 4f-classified trumpet player who d rather be handling real guns–until he falls in love with Kay. Director Jonathan Demme, director of photography Tak Fujimoto amd production desinger Peter Jamison give Swing Shift a startling authenticity and style in everything from bungalow bric-a-brac to assembly-line aircraft. Costume desinger Joe I.Tompkins decks out his cast in perfect harmony with their time and place. Rob Morton s screenplay preserves the illusion of 40-year distance with convincing character motivation and superb dialogue. But perhaps the most moving thing about Swing Shift is its uniquw tone–the same gently ironic affection Demme displayed in his earlier hit Melvin and Howard. "I m after a reflection of real life", Demme explains, "which is not exactly comedy and not exactly drama, but a blend of both". A blend which Swing Shift achieves to perfection.