Swing Shift is a 1984 comedy-drama film directed by Jonathan Demme, starring Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Ed Harris, Christine Lahti, Patty Maloney, and Fred Ward.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Jack Walsh (Harris) enlists in the Navy, leaving his wife, Kay (Hawn), home alone and unsure what to do with herself. After seeing a newsreel calling for female factory workers, she applies at a munitions plant and is hired for the swing shift along with her neighbor Hazel (Lahti), who at first doesn’t particularly like Kay thanks to Jack’s casual prejudice against Hazel and her profession as a lounge singer.
Kay also meets Lucky (Russell), one of the factory leadmen, who was turned down by the Army due to a heart defect. He hits on Kay constantly for weeks until she finally agrees to go to dinner with him, but freaks out and leaves when she sees her landlords at the restaurant. Lucky backs off for a while, while Kay develops more competence at work and confidence in herself, going from a naïve housewife to a Wrench Wench who can fix her own kitchen appliances. Eventually, she does agree to go out with Lucky, and begins an affair with him, which predictably does not end well.
Swing Shift contains examples of:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Kay, though she fights it at first.
- Alliterative Name: Lucky Lockhart.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Hazel and Biscuit.
- Character Development: Both Kay and Hazel, but Kay in particular.
- Deadpan Snarker: Hazel. At one point she tells Kay that if Jack likes a certain dress of hers so much, he should wear it.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Hazel. She does not appreciate the grief Jack gives her about her profession, and is initially somewhat hostile to Kay.
- Everybody Smokes: The film is set during World War II, after all.
- First Guy Wins: Kay and Jack ultimately get back together.
- Glamorous Wartime Singer: Hazel, until she loses her job and goes to work in the factory with Kay.
- The Ingenue: Kay. At the start of the war, she's a naïve housewife who's never had a job.
- Jerkass: Jack is a very mild variant, when it comes to Hazel. He pokes fun at her when he sees her go by, but he doesn’t seem to realize how mean it actually is. Prior to the war, he comes across as almost as naïve as Kay.
- Newsreel: How Kay finds out about the factory job.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Lucky and Biscuit, until the end of the movie.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Kind of. It’s not that Jack wants to keep Kay isolated, he just doesn’t think she should have to work; that it’s a poor reflection on him if she does need to.
- Took a Level in Badass: Kay, in a sense. She goes from a naïve, uncertain engenue to a confident Wrench Wench who winds up leadwoman of her crew.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: Of the Real Life, unintentional variety. The theatrical release and even the first VHS run are notorious for failing to catch the fact that during a scene after Jack has taken a shower, the camera got a shot straight up his towel. They (eventually) caught it and added a Digital Bikini.
- The version of the film currently streaming on TCM has the original scene, Wardrobe Malfunction intact.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Kay again, initially.
- Wrench Wench: Kay and Hazel.
