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A movie about a women who cheats on her War hero husband

posted 8 years ago by lonnieanixt
4 replies | jump to latest

Really. Why the heck did they make a movie like this and waste the efforts of so many Talented people.
Remember the great war movie -'A thin red line." In that movie one of the heroes of the movie, a marine facing the hell that is Guadacanal, the only thing that keeps him going is thoughts of his wife back home, when his company is removed from the battle after a particularly brutal and horrifying action in which many in the company were killed, Private Bell receives a dear John letter, and he goes back into battle with this on his mind. In many ways 'Swing Shift' is like telling that story from the wifes perspective.
I have no respect for women like that. The Hell these men went through on behalf of our country and the World is impossible to calculate and we owe them all much more than is possible to repay.
The Movie is supposed to be about the heroic effort the women back home did on behalf of the country, yet it mucks it up so much with Hawn's affair with Russel, that the audience doesn't know who to root for.
Hazel is a much easier character to root for and it becomes Lahti's picture, she becomes the real heroine. Hawn herself doesn't know how to play the part which is such a departure from the bubbly girl scouts she usually plays.I t's a weird movie that fails at every level.
The film starts off going in one direction-the heroic effort of the women who put down their sewing kits and frying pans and joined the work force to help the country win the war, and all the zany things that happen when a culture is turned on its head, the women get push back from the men already working there, and thats what it looks like the movie is trying to sell a whimsical look back at the most heroic time in the nations history, then all of a sudden the movie takes a U-turn, a lovers triangle forms that brings the movie to a halt and has nothing at all to do with life at the Airplane factory, or the War.
A movie that has all the earmarks of a movie in which the script was torn up half way through, as somebody figured out nobody wanted to see a movie about Rosie the Riveter , the rather see a love story between Hawn and Russel, they were wrong on both counts.
Having gotten themselves into a mess, the Film doesn't know how to end, because how can the Harris character ever trust his wife ( Hawn ) again. It tries to show that War has more casualties than those on the battlefield but it just doesn't work.

[–] cyninbend-149-610489 8 years ago

Re-watching it all these years later, I completely agree! When it was released, there was such a PR campaign that went with it, focus shifted to the local plants in Santa Monica where the women had worked, and other items of interest locally, plus the music, dancing. Now I'm shocked at Goldie Hawn's terrible acting skills--her face hardly moves in scenes that should have been heartrending. The other actors around her excel, so focus can shift to them. It's an odd movie that needs to be watched in the context of other 1980s films, not in the context of the movies made in in the era the film supposedly takes place. If you watch it in the context of other war-era movies, it hasn't a chance.

You are right on point about this being a movie from the perspective of the author of a "Dear John" letter! Great point. As for Kay's disloyalty--they spend as much time dealing with it as they do her anger at Hazel for seeing Mike after Kay breaks it off when her husband visits suddenly. It's as though cheating is just another day in the life of the women at home when the men go off to war. They choose to avoid any moralizing at all. Older movies may have concentrated on the pain she caused, her karmic punishment, the soldier's broken heart along with the trials of the battlefield. This did the opposite, more or less excusing her unfaithfulness because, after all, she was in love! Then the movie ends by superimposing the women being sent home from their jobs with just a "thank-you very much and good luck!" so there would be empty positions for the returning soldiers, with a typical movie happy ending--wedding for the single girl, the marriage repaired and all forgiven, and a baby on the way for another couple!

[–] chicago85 8 years ago

A lot of girls hurriedly married men who went off to war and after awhile they both found they didn't have enough in common to stay married. I think there was some sort of law passed delaying divorces until service men (and women) returned home due to the morale problems divorces caused. They hoped that by delaying things the marriage might be saved.

That said, a lot of servicemen cheated on their wives, fiancés and girlfriends while away from home. So many that if killed, their buddies would go through their personal effects and throw away pictures and letters from other women before sending the things home.

My father was one of those cheaters who abandoned my mother and me for another woman. He even cut off our allotment leaving us destitute. When his commanding officer found out, he called my father in and tore up his application to OCS telling him a man like him was unfit to be an officer.

There are two sides to every coin. Frankly we were better off without him. My mother married my stepfather who served three years in the Pacific surviving vicious fighting. The two men were as different as night and day.

I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else

[–] Jes' Sayin' (5958) 3 years ago

Ya missed it. That's not what it's about.

This is a film about women entering the workplace and about one woman (the Hawn character) learning to respect another woman who isn't exactly the same as her (the Lahti character). At the end it's not Hawn and a guy, but Hawn and Lahti.

[–] Enigmaticocean77 (2122) 2 years ago

It starts off that way, but about 45 minutes into it it becomes all about a woman who is cheating on her war hero husband. Sure, for the last ten minutes it shifts back to the work environment, but that's about it. there was a lot of talent in this movie. It's a shame the script wasn't better. By the end I strongly disliked Kay. I thought she was selfish, and if I had been her husband I would have left her.