Swing Shift (1984) on Netflix
Jack Walsh enlists in the Navy after Pearl Harbor. His wife Kay takes a riveter's job at an aircraft plant, befriending her neighbor Hazel Zanussi. Their leadman, Lucky Lockhart, pursues her.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.0/105,981 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes87%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jack and Kay Walsh live in a Los Angeles housing complex, where he works and she keeps the house. Jack considers their neighbor Hazel Zanussi white trash, while Kay is quietly curious about her. Hazel sings at a club run by her boyfriend Biscuits Toohey, who keeps her taxi dancing and sees other women. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Jack enlists in the Navy. Against his wishes, Kay takes an assembly line job as a riveter at MacBride, a Santa Monica aircraft manufacturer. Hazel takes a job there too, and the two women become friends, standing up to the male workers' taunts. Their leadman, Lucky Lockhart, a trumpeter, pursues Kay, who is drawn to him but does not want to betray her husband.
Cast
- Morris 'Tex' Biggsas Clarence
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Swing Shift (1984)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Demme said he was "profoundly disappointed" by Warner Bros.' reshoots and walked off the film with editor Craig McKay rather than work on something they didn't believe in. He kept his directing credit but stripped the phrase "A Jonathan Demme Film" from the finished movie and its advertising.
- In December 1983 Warner Bros. ordered 30 minutes of reshoots to make Hazel "more sympathetic" and push the love triangle, delaying the release from February to April 1984 and raising the budget from $14 million to $15-17 million.
- Screenwriter Nancy Dowd took her name off Swing Shift and was credited as "Rob Morton" after agreeing with Warner Bros. not to discuss the film publicly; a Writers' Guild hearing later gave her sole screen credit, still pseudonymous.
- Goldie Hawn wanted the romance between her character and Kurt Russell's at the forefront of the film, and Warner Bros. sided with her; Jonathan Demme believed that was because Hawn's previous film Private Benjamin had been a box-office success.
