20 Sep Swing Kids
Swing Kids, WWII Movie starring Robert Sean Leonard
(1993) In 1939 Hamburg, Germany, a group of kids are holding underground swing parties in defiance to the Nazi Party prohibition of such “dangerous music.” Many of the popular American jazz musicians, for example, Benny Goodman and Count Basie, were banned because the artists were Jewish or black and the words often promoted sexual permissiveness.
This could have happened anywhere and in any generation except that in Germany the young people were under great pressure to conform to the rules and join the Hitlerjugend, the Hitler Youth, the “HJ.” The film “Swing Kids” is about a group of college students who love to swing, and how they react to what is happening around them.
In his 1993 review, Roger Ebert is critical that the boys seem to care more about the music than the Nazi atrocities. I guess that’s true. Some of them were clueless like kids can be. Others were either afraid to rock the boat or were easily brainwashed and willingly became Nazi-ites.
The main character, Peter, is gradually catching on but to take his stand means leaving behind his entire life, his family, his Mom, his devastated little brother. I enjoyed reading this Amazon comment by a teacher who uses Swing Kids when teaching about World War II to give her class a kid’s viewpoint that they can relate to. It’s an interesting string of remarks.
And the music. Here is a list of the songs played from the TCM site. I’m ordering the soundtrack.
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