"Swing Shift" is a kind of a frustrating viewing experience, because you can see potential that was for the most part not realized. A combination of below average writing with some lacklustre performances is what mainly sinks the movie. The screenplay doesn't really flesh out the characters well enough; we don't really get into the heads of these characters and learn what is motivating them. For example, Ed Harris' character is shipped out so quickly, we learn next to nothing about him before his long absence. When he returns and finds out what happened during his stint in the military, it's hard to feel what he's feeling. Goldie Hawn's character is so vague (and has so little time in the beginning with Harris' character) that we don't feel one way or another with her eventual out of the blue decision to have a relationship with Kurt Russell's character. Making matters worse is that the main players don't give it their all with their performances; while Hawn and Russell fell in love during production, I couldn't feel any chemistry between them in front of the camera. Some of the supporting players do somewhat better, especially Christine Lahti. And the period detail is quite good. But those aforementioned problems, plus the sluggish pace created by director Jonathan Demme, end up making the movie a tiresome - and frankly uninteresting - slog.

It's 1941 Santa Monica. Kay Walsh (Goldie Hawn) is happily married. Her fisherman husband Jack (Ed Harris) enlists after Pearl Harbor. Kay gets a job at the aircraft plant despite Jack's objections. Their lounge singer neighbor Hazel (Christine Lahti) is tired of her manager Archibald 'Biscuits' Touie (Fred Ward) and doesn't like the Walshes either who often snicker at her. Eventually, the two women become best of friends at the sexist plant on the swing shift from four to midnight. Kay starts to fall for her supervisor trumpet player Mike 'Lucky' Lockhart (Kurt Russell).He's a player hound-dogging a married woman. She doesn't come off that well either. There has to be a higher degree of douchness from Jack to excuse her cheating on him. He is a male chauvinist but not necessarily worst than everybody else including Lucky. As a rom-com, it's very awkward. I really couldn't take the bad romance. For this to work, this has to be a darker drama. All the lightness has to go. Goldie Hawn is the wrong person to go there. There is a wrong tone to the movie. I don't know which version I saw although I suspect it's not the director's cut.

Nice period feeling and an interesting premise that doesn't get a lot of attention, women's role in the workplace during WWII. They should have focused on that and left the weak love story out and would had a better film. The problem is that Goldie's and Russell's characters are not really people you can feel much empathy for, she's spoiled and selfish and he's really rather a jerk whereas the more interesting and relatable characters played by Ed Harris and Christine Lahti are kept too much in the background. Christine Lahti however steals every second she's on screen apparently pre-release tinkering cut some of her best work to throw the spotlight more Goldie's way, perhaps costing her a best supporting actress Oscar although she was nominated. You'll spot Holly Hunter early in her career as one of the factory girls. Not without its merits and attractions but less than it could have been.

I said in my first review of this movie that it would never be on DVD. The reason is obvious. That infamous towel scene with Ed Harris. Well, I must admit that I was surprised when the DVD came out recently, but guess what? The scene was edited.That's right. With cinematograhpy by none other than Tak Fujimoto, whose work with Demme yielded Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia, and who also shot masterpieces like Sixth Sense and Signs, the DVD was nevertheless cropped to take the bounce out of that scene. Now I'm not saying that's the only reason to watch the film, but I'll tell you this. If I had been Goldie Hawn, I would have made the play for Ed Harris instead of Kurt Russell, except that Ed was at the time and still is married to Amy Madigan.Don't buy the DVD.