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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 19, 1984)
Thursday, April 19,1534 Pago 6 Daily Nebraskan 'Swing Shift ' offers some fun but falls short on satisfaction Review by Jeff Goodwin Swing Shijt, Goldie 1 1 awn's newest film, has something for everybody. As Donnie and Marie would say, it's cot a little comedy, a little drama, a little romance. That, "ultimately, is the film's main problem. There's a little bit of every thing but not enough of anything to satisfy. At times the film looks promis ing, but the good moments seem to come in spurts and things never come together. Hawn plays Kay Walsh, a devoted housewife who is left in the lurch when her hubby (Ed Harris) joins the Navy after Pearl Harbor is bombed. Kay decides she doesn't want to spend the war dusting and doing the laundry so she gets a job at a local aircraft factory to help the war effort. There she meets Lucky Lockhart (Kurt Russell), an aspiring musician who immediately takes a shine to her. Lucky invites her down to a local club to watch him blow his horn and, after, much hesitation, she accepts. Well, to make a long story short (something the makers of this film were unable to do) Lucky and Kay have a roll in the hay. Of course, this is during the war, so they have to be discreet about it. To throw Kay's neighbors off the scent, they enlist the help of Kay's friend, Hazel. To the outside world, it looks as though Hazel and Lucky are having an affair. But we, from our aisle seat in the fourth row, know better. Everything is peachy until hubby Jack, on leave, comes home unexpect edly and figures out what has been going on all these months while he has been keeping the world free for demo cracy. This screws things up for the rest of our friends and relationships go flying around the screen like a runaway fruit bat. This threatens the harmony of our world for a while but, just as the war ends nicely, so too does our little story. It's not that the ending is far-fetched. It's pretty logical, in fact. It just would have been nice for once if things hadn't worked out and Jack had called Kay a tramp and kicked her out of the house and she had gone to Vegas and become a hooker and then the girl friend of Bugsy Siegel. But that's not the way it works in Hollywood. Hawn and Russell do a nice enough job with what they've got to work with. The problem is they just don't have much to go with here. It looks as if Rob Morton, the screen writer, threw a lot of situations into a hat and pulled out his plot. This, more than anything else, is the film's down fall Suing Shift currently is showing at the Cinema 1 & 2, 201 N. 13th St. if To;:iS!ir to ariY us' i:oir ciB23 mtr:s soui go c: Qfl J r? I J J t Gcldie Hawn in Swing Shift (on lio Sim (S'lLJl V i V i Y 4 J ( 1 V.'irr.cr Cros. '-itsjf'.-cirji3ft(-. 5 f 4. I J ? 4 f Vl I