In this the seventh film in the Maisie series, Ann Southern meets a test pilot, who you know she's falling for, who she introduces to her new found (her dog alerts Maisie to the girl's "suicide" attempt)friend Iris. "Breezy" gets both the girls jobs in an aircraft plant where both get a lot of wolf whistles and "woo woo" (Was this a forties thing? Did it have something to do with that Woo Woo guy?)and hit on but Iris is soon engaged to "Breezy" while the in love Maisie is left crying. Maisie soon finds out that Iris is a big phony who faked her "suicide" to bilk money out of her and is just marrying "Breezy" to fleece him. Iris accuses Maisie of being a Nazi saboteur to keep her busy while she gets "Breezy" to marry her. "Breezy" starts to see through Iris and races back to Maisie to now declare his love for her! This movie is basically good fun with a somewhat "racy" plot of a guy in love with two women at the same time. I really like Ann Southern who made the most of her street smart wise cracking Maisie character and like Joan Blondell or Glenda Farell was the very attractive woman a lot of men really went for I think because they weren't the unreachable glamour girl but the real life woman who could do everything and fight for themselves. These were the original woman's lib women who were also great looking. I hope everyone will check out the upcoming Maisie "marathon" on TCM 11/26/07 where you will get to see and dvr all nine Maisie movies. If only those great Private Secretary and Ann Southern TV shows were still available for viewing. I wish Ted Turner would start a TV channel for old TV shows like TCM and show great classic TV shows uncut and commercial free.
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joeshoe898 October 2007
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utgard1410 May 2017Once again Maisie is out of a job. This time due to a test pilot named Breezy (James Craig, the poor man's Clark Gable). Of course, because she has crappy taste in men, Maisie falls for him. He gets her a job at a defense plant and a room at a boardinghouse, where she befriends a conniving woman named Iris (radiant Jean Rogers). Soon Iris is working at the plant as well and steals Breezy from Maisie. It gets even messier from there but you get the general idea.
This is a strange entry in the Maisie series, mainly due to the weird combination of the wartime elements and the love triangle with the traitorous friend. But still it's entertaining. Ann Sothern is as adorable and sympathetic as ever. Jean Rogers is positively gorgeous. The camera is in love with her. In every shot she seems to glow. Too bad her character is such a bitch. Some of the highlights in this one include Maisie swishing her way through the factory and turning heads, Iris being thrown around by Maisie's acrobat friends and getting her hair caught in machinery, and pretty much every scene involving a character named Judd ("Hello, curvaceous"). It's an enjoyable enough movie, even if it meanders a bit and the ending stinks. -
May contain Spoilers ** Ann Sothern is Maisie Ravier during the war, in the usual "everybody doing their part for the war effort" movie. After Ann made all those sweetheart mix- up movies with Gene Raymond in the 1930s, she starred in the "Maisie" series, with different leading men. Here, Jim Craig is a pilot Breezy Mclaughlin, who wants to serve, but his boss writes a letter keeping him out of the service. Maisie ends up going to work when she can't produce a birth certificate to join up. At one point, she comes across a gas filled room where a girl is trying to commit suicide, and the first thing she does is turn on the electric fan... Now it seems to me, in a room filled with gas, one probably shouldn't switch on the electric fan, but that's just me. Anyhoo...Jean Wilson plays "Iris" who tries to commit suicide, and falls for Breezy. (When she says "I won a beauty contest back home, and I want to get into pictures" apparently that was Jean's real life story, and she HAD been in pictures 10 years, but no well-known starring roles.) You know when Breezy says "We're one big happy family!" that all hell will break loose pretty soon, and they are fighting over him. Entertaining, but no big surprises.
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dougdoepke27 June 2011The first half is almost delightful, thanks to a light touch and some snappy dialog. Then too, Sothern and Craig act out the lines with bounce and sass. And to spice things up, we don't just wonder which girl Breezy (Craig) will end up with, there are even hints that it might be both! (Pretty naughty for the time.)
But then the screenplay turns gradually somber as the troubled Iris (Rogers) takes over and the breezy Breezy drops out of sight. The transition is rather skillfully managed; still, the movie loses its bouncy strong point, becoming almost melodramatic instead. Too bad, but then it seems good comedy scripts are harder to do than good melodrama-- maybe that's why.
One reason I watch these wartime programmers is to catch some flavor of the times. I figured a swing shift at a defense plant might provide insight. Well, the movie does, partially. There's some Rosie the Riveter feminism as expected.
But what I picked up was that each segment of the airplane assembly line was sealed off by guards from the others. Just why wasn't explained, but I surmise it was to make possible espionage more difficult. Also, the little episode with Iris's long locks explains why the iconic Rosie is always pictured with bundled hair. Still, I wish the rather lengthy run-time (87-min.) spent more time with how the women were adjusting to their new roles, which might also have made good comedy.
Anyway, despite the questionable change in tone, it's a decent enough programmer, especially the bouncy first half. -
bkoganbing14 December 2013After being an assistant in John Qualen's dog act which runs amok in a nightclub due to James Craig's boisterousness, Ann Sothern finds herself once again on her uppers and with a bit of difficulty finally winds up working at a defense plant doing her Rosie the Riveteer thing. It's another job to put on her post war resume.
Craig's a test pilot at this defense plant and despite his bumptious nature as characterized his nickname of 'Breezy' he's a likable if a bit dumb sort and Sothern kind of likes him to. But he's got eyes for Jean Rogers who Sothern has taken in as a roommate in Connie Gilchrist's boardinghouse.
Rogers is some piece of work and I can't say more less I give the plot away. Though Craig himself is thick as a brick the way Ashton Kutcher was on That 70s show.
Swing Shift Maisie is a wartime bit of cheer and it's both easy to take and gives you a good glimpse of the home front in the early 40s. -
planktonrules26 January 2014I have really enjoyed watching all the Maisie films when they were recently shown on Turner Classic Movies. While none of them were great films, they were all enjoyable light entertainment--the sort of B-movies that MGM made so well. While this one is a bit below average for the series, since all of the films are quite good, I could look past this being a tiny bit of a letdown.
Maisie (Ann Sothern) is, once again, out of work--something that occurs in almost all of the films. However, she soon lands a job in an aircraft factory. After all, it's the height of WWII and able bodies are sure needed. Along the way, she picks up a beau nicknamed 'Breezy' (James Craig) and a roommate, Iris (Jean Rogers). However, over time Iris steals away Maisie's boyfriend and slowly reveals herself to be a selfish, amoral....um...jerk (IMDB won't let me use the more appropriate word--feel free to substitute your own). And, unlike Maisie, couldn't care less about America, freedom or niceness! So, it's up to Maisie to save the day and stop Iris from tricking poor Breezy into a hellish marriage.
Like so many Maisie films, when this one ends, it sure looks as if Maisie is about to get married--yet, when the next film comes out, "Maisie Goes to Reno", her boyfriend and marriage proposal are both never mentioned again! However, surprisingly, she DOES still have a job in "Maisie Goes to Reno"! The weakness of this installment is Iris. Her character is awfully obviously bad--and the character seemed pretty one-dimensional. But, it still was fun and worth seeing mostly because Maisie is a likable character. -
By the humble standards of the "Maisie" series, Swing Shift Maisie is a well-produced and fairly entertaining offering. I mean, just look at that support cast. Any movie with Jean Rogers can't be all that bad. Here she plays the vamp to perfection, easily outshining aggressive scenery-chewer Ann Sothern.
In fact, Jean Rogers is such a lovely girl, photographer Harry Stradling can't help but present her most attractively, even though she's supposed to be the villain of the piece.
Craig is okay as the self-centered hero, but the support cast is so chock-a-block with all our favorite cameo actors, "Swing Shift Maisie" is worth seeing just for this feature alone — though I didn't spot John Hodiak! What a pity Fred Brady didn't have the Craig role — and Mr. Craig his!
Norman Z. McLeod has directed with reasonable if somewhat too obvious competence, allowing Miss Sothern too much rein to over-act and staging at least two key scenes with incorrect emphases. The "cute meet" between Craig and Sothern seems far too contrived. Even as boorishly self-centered a hero as "Breezy" would surely choose a phone less public than one practically right next to the stage. On the other hand, the meeting of heroine and "other girl" is under- played, with absolutely no indication of her true nature at all. -
SimonJack26 September 2021It's the middle of World War II for the U. S., and Maisie Ravier is doing her part. Besides being a factory worker and helping build planes like Rosie the Riveter, Ann Sothern's Ravier is making another movie to help lift the spirits of people on the home front. This is the seventh in the series of Maisie films by MGM, and the studio and cast make a good anti-Nazi propaganda film as well.
There isn't much to the plot in this one. Maisie starts out in a dog act that folds over a squabble she is part of. A little oddity is that Maisie doesn't have a birth certificate for an ID to be able to get the war-time factory job. So, she gets the dog act guy, Horatio Curley, to vouch as having known her since childhood. That would do in lieu of a birth certificate.
This is another good romantic comedy in which Maisie has to convince the company test pilot, Breezy McLaughlin, that she's the gal for him. And it takes some time before Breezy wakes up to the conniving Iris Reed. -
Doylenf26 November 2007There's a bad taste left after viewing this supposedly amusing Maisie film, the seventh in the series, which has Maisie and the other femme lead (JEAN ROGERS) making a lot of bad choices and doing a lot of foolish and sometimes mean-spirited things.
We get the idea that Maisie is supposed to be a "breezy" character and ANN SOTHERN is adept at getting this facet of Maisie's personality across. But the script has her making a chump of herself over befriending the wrong-headed JEAN ROGERS, who turns out to be a conniving idiot, and both in love with the equally addle-brained JAMES CRAIG, who plays a wartime test pilot in love with both girls working at a munitions factory.
The script calls for one foolish scene after another, finally ending with Craig dumping Rogers for Sothern and finally seeing the light.
Only die-hard fans of Ann Sothern will enjoy this one. The script needed to be totally revamped and is actually quite obnoxious at times. -
SnoopyStyle27 June 2023It's the war years and Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothern) gets a job at an airplane assembly plant after getting fired from a dog act. 'Breezy' McLaughlin (James Craig) is the dare-devil test pilot at the plant. He wants to join the war, but the boss is preventing him. Maisie helps struggling actress Iris Reed (Jean Rogers) get a job at the plant. It backfires when Breezy falls for Iris.
This got real dark for a second. It doesn't need to go that dark. I would prefer not to go there even with the later reveal. It's uncomfortable. This is the seventh in the series. It's wartime Maisie. The last one did tack on a wartime propaganda. In this one, she's jumping from her showbiz job right into Rosie the Riveter. I don't really like Breezy leaving. It makes the love triangle very wonky. The Hitler joke is a little surprising, but I guess a lot of movies were doing that. The drill press accident is actually very scary. All in all, it would be more compelling if Breezy is around. The tension just isn't there. The movie has one note and it keeps playing over and over again. It gets a bit tiring. -
NutzieFagin22 December 2013Swing Shift Maisie is one of those screwball comedy films made in World War II that cheered people up thru those perilous times.
Maisie Revere, aka Mary Anastasia O'Conner, the stage performer with a heart of gold is at it again! This time, after a dog act literally breaks up and she is down on her luck, she is taken under the wing of Breezy Maclaughlin (James Craig) an aviator who slightly resembles Clark Gable and struck by Maisie's pretty "Snub nose" face He gets her a job in the aviation plant as a Riviterand room at Ma's Rooming House. Breezy, of course is a gentleman but it is very soon that he and Maisie become attracted to another. After a quick friendship, romance blooms between the duo until a sweet face, but devious girl named Iris comes into the frame. Iris seems to be a girl badly in need of a friend and Maisie could never, ever not lend a helping hand. But after she saves Iris from a "suicide", it becomes clear that Iris is becoming involved with Breezy more and more. Maisie begrudgingly accepts defeat and gives up Breezy because she is a true and blue friend to Iris. But is Iris a loyal comrade also? And does she have other designs on her mind?
Movie viewers will get a kick out of the witty, snappy dialog and plot intrigue. They may also get a glimpse of women and the wartime and the problems that they may have faced. Working the swing shift at the plant, keeping yourself occupied while your soldier was away in battle. I have a feeling this film was more or less to cheer up the people during the horrors of war like a USO show.
So pop the popcorn and go back into the wartime world with Maisie. It is a cute film with a happy ending