One Of Kurt Russell's Biggest Flops Of The '80s Ended Up Being An Oscar Nominee

There's long been a divide between what's popular with general audiences and what's popular with the Academy Award voters. Popular, beloved directors like Alfred Hitchcock famously never won an Oscar, for instance, just as actor Samuel L. Jackson has never won one despite starring in seemingly every big movie ever. One particularly fun example of this phenomenon came with Kurt Russell's 1984 movie "Swing Shift," a box office bomb that grossed $6.6 million on a $15 million budget. 

Why did it bomb? The general consensus was that the movie failed to live up to its promising premise. The movie was about the labor shortage during WWII, where women found unexpected power in the workforce before being pushed back into traditional roles the moment the war was over. The movie captured the feeling of the time period well and featured a few hard-hitting moments, but it didn't nail it in the way that "A League of Their Own" would a decade later. "The subject matter of 'Swing Shift' is so potentially rich, you hate to see it squandered this way," wrote Sheila Benson of the LA Times. 

Critics pointed to the behind-the-scenes conflict affecting the story; not only was the script rewritten multiple times, but Warner Bros. forced 30 minutes worth of reshoots onto the film against director Jonathon Demme's wishes. The conflicting visions behind the film bled into the movie itself, as multiple critics seemed to notice. "It's a wisp of a movie, with vague aspirations to be touching, and I got the impression that there had never been a very strong script," wrote Pauline Kael for The New Yorker. "There are no high spots, no exciting moments. The picture just goes popping from one recessive, undeveloped scene to the next."

Despite the mixed reviews and the box office disappointment, "Swing Shift" still nearly managed to win an Oscar thanks to Christine Lahti. Goldie Hawn may have played the main character, Kay Walsh, but it was Lahti as her new friend, Hazel who stole the show. Even in the reviews that trashed the film, Lahti drew plenty of praise. As Kael wrote about her:

"Goldie Hawn and her moviemaking team have also made a basic mistake in strategy: they've given Christine Lahti's Hazel the wisecracks. Christine Lahti, who has dark hair, high cheekbones, and a long neck with great cords in it, is one of the marvelous new towering Venuses who are changing our image of women. Like Sigourney Weaver, Joanna Cassidy, Kathleen Turner and, of course, Vanessa Redgrave, she's heroically feminine. She's also a rip-snorting comedienne, and she gives the picture whatever spark and intensity it has."

The Academy picked up on this buzz as well, which is why they nominated Lahti alongside Glenn Close, Peggy Ashcroft, Lindsay Crouse, and Geraldine Page for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Unfortunately, Lahti didn't win — the award went to Ashcroft for "A Passage to India" — and Lahti was still left waiting for the breakout role she'd hoped "Swing Shift" would be for her.

"I still don't think I've had a real breakthrough role," she said in a 1985 interview. "Each time I think this is the one, but it's not." Talking about the reception to "Swing Shift," she admitted, "I was very surprised and extremely discouraged. The movie seemed to have everything going for it."