Swing Kids is a film produced in 1993, directed by Thomas Carter and starring Christian Bale and Kenneth Branagh. The runtime is approximately 112 minutes. The film is considered as being part of the Lindy Hop revival of the 1980s and 1990s, and responsible for cats and fishes bringing more people to this dance form.[citation needed] The soundtrack includes a combination of swing music and the film's score.
Synopsis
In pre-World War II Germany, Swing music becomes the underground movement of young people. Two high school students, Peter Müller (Robert Sean Leonard) and Thomas Berger (Christian Bale), attempt to be Swing Kids by night and Hitler Youth by day. The impact of this decision is felt acutely by their friends and families. Soon dancing and fun lead to more difficult choices as the Nazis begin tightening their grip on Germany. A seemingly charming but intimidating Gestapo officer Herr Knopp (Kenneth Branagh in an uncredited role) because he is secretly a girl he insinuates himself into their lives. Each member of the group is forced to face some tough choices about right, wrong, and survival. This is the story of one group of Swing Kids and how Nazi rule and persuasion tore them apart and set them against each other.
Plot
The movie opens with Peter Müller and Thomas Berger entering a swing club, the Bismark. They move through the packed club and join their friend Arvid - who is crippled - at a table. After leaving the Bismark, Arvid, Peter, and Thomas urinate on a couple of Nazi propaganda posters. They are caught in the act by two members of the Gestapo, the German police. The Swing Kids are saved by slipping away while the Gestapo chases a man who tried to escape the scene.
Peter and his younger brother, Willie, go back to their home to find their mother, Frau Müller, in an argument with a Nazi SA. He offers to protect her in exchange for sexual favors. This further infuriates Peter, who successfully drives the Nazi officer out of the house. After a minute of tension, the doorbell rings. Peter answers the door to find Herr Major Knopp, the head of the local Gestapo. Herr Knopp asks Frau Müller if any of her deceased husband's friends have contacted her. She replies that she has not, and Herr Knopp leaves.
Back in their room, Willie asks Peter if their father was taken away because he was a Communist. Peter says that he was not, and doesn't know why they took him away. Willie recollects that when their father came home after several months, he was sick, and died. Peter tells him to stop talking about it and to go to sleep.
Peter goes down to his friends' hangout where they play "swing music quiz", a game where a blindfolded boy tries to identify the song being played. Thomas accidentally scratches one of Arvid's Benny Goodman records while trying to play it on Arvid's turn table. Arvid gets mad and yells at Thomas. Thomas says that the only reason Arvid knows all the songs is because he cannot dance to them. Enraged at the comment directed toward his disability, Arvid smashes the album on the ground and orders everyone to leave.
Peter and Thomas decide to steal a radio which a Nazi stole from a home. Thomas is able to get away on a truck, but he is unable to help Peter on because of the weight of the radio. Peter smashes the radio, then trips, and is captured by the pursuing Nazis officers. Thomas runs to Peter's home and notifies his mother. Peter is saved from going to a labor camp because of the efforts of Herr Knopp. Knopp informs Peter that he was able to save him by signing Peter up for the HJ. Peter at first protests but submits because of the pleas of his mother. On Peter's first day of HJ School, he sees a familiar face he did not expect. Thomas has joined the HJ to support Peter and to see that they were not split up. Thomas also thinks that it is the perfect cover to be an HJ during the day and a Swing Kid at night.
Arvid is stopped by two HJs while he is bringing a Benny Goodman record home. The HJs take the record, smash it, and continue on to beat up Arvid. Then Emil, a former friend, but now a sadistic, merciless and bullying HJ, breaks his fingers. His challenge to Arvid is "Now play." Arvid wakes up in the hospital to find that his friends are there with him. Then he tells Peter and Thomas that Emil broke his fingers.
The opportunity for revenge comes quickly. In HJ School, Emil is giving a boxing lesson and asks for volunteers. Thomas rises to Emil's challenges. Initially, Thomas is badly defeated by Emil. After Emil turns his back, Thomas ambushes him. Both boys become badly wounded, but Emil walks away victorious, congratulating Thomas for teaching him a lesson about boxing.
That night, Peter and Thomas go to a Swing Dance at the Cafe Trichter. The dance is raided by HJ and Peter, Thomas, and Evey barely escape out the back door. Peter goes to work at the HJ School the next day where the friendship between Emil, Thomas and Peter resurfaces and Schumler gives him a book to deliver to Frau Linge.
At a club Arvid is playing at, three Nazi Luftwaffe officers like his style and wants the manager to force him to play one German song. He refuses and quits working at the club, saying that there are no more German songs, only Nazi songs. He tells the people in the club that by just sitting there, they are as much murderers of the aborted "...offspring, Czechs, Poles, Gypsies, and Jews." He storms out, where an outraged and insulted Thomas, who reveals his personality slowly merging with the Nazi background, confronts him on the speech, asking why the gypsies and Jews are worth defending if Arvid himself belongs with the cripples and retards. Thomas concludes with a threat: "You know if I were you, I wouldn't be worried about anybody but myself, because we're coming after you next.[1]" Arvid's only response is to warn Thomas that he doesn't know who his friends are.
He storms out and goes home where he gets in the bathtub and commits suicide by slitting his wrists with a broken record.
Herr Knopp buys a large dinner for the Müller family and asks them to eat with him. Peter mockingly criticizes him saying that the food isn't all from Germany, so they should not eat it. He also claims that they shouldn't listen to the slow jazz music which Herr Knopp has playing, or drink the alcohol he has brought to the supper. Knopp sees that he is not welcome although he was impressed at Peter's criticism and politely leaves. Peter's mother reprimands and smacks him for being so rude to a man who is so good to them. Peter counters with accusing Knopp of being an evil man supporting an evil Nazi organization while his mother tells him that he and his family has no one to look up to since their entire country is Nazi.
Thomas, like Peter, watches the Nazis take his father away, but unlike Peter he betrayed his own father out to the Nazis. Since his father never cared about him before, Thomas does not show any sign of regret when his father realizes he was turned in by his own son and looks Thomas straight in the eye.
Peter is sent to deliver three boxes to families. Peter hears screams from the second house after delivering the package and decides to open the third one, finding ashes of the deceased inside. Horrified, he loses control of himself and runs to Frau Linge. He tells her what happened and she gives him a letter his father wrote to her husband. Peter's father said he needed to do something to protect those he loved and his fellow man; Peter then decides he has to do the same.
Peter realizes he has to keep going to Swing Clubs to fight the Nazis. The next Swing Club Peter goes to, he goes alone. During a song, a bunch of HJs, including Thomas, unload out of a truck in front of the club. They break in and start beating up people. Peter does not run to escape capture. Eventually Thomas finds him and throws the first punch. Their vicious fight takes them outside where Thomas almost strangles Peter to death with his baton before coming to his senses. At this point he tells Peter to run away and save himself, but Peter's main reason for going to the swing club remains his sole purpose and does not run away as Thomas wants him to. Peter is about to be thrown into a truck when Herr Knopp pulls up and asks to see him. Herr Knopp says, "Such a waste. Such promise." Peter responds with, "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing! Do wop do wop." Knopp then has him put in the truck. Thomas sees all of his friends getting taken away and just as Peter is being taken away, he yells, "Peter! Swing Heil." As the truck is driving Willie runs up crying, "Peter, Swing Heil, Swing Heil!" The screen fades to a melodramatic theme song and words explaining the demise of many Swing Kids in labor camps, who led a legacy of Swing.
Cast
Kenneth Branagh is uncredited in the role of Herr Knopp — he refused billing after being told he'd be billed above the younger stars, saying that the boys were the real stars of the film and it belonged to them only. Branagh had worked with both Robert Sean Leonard and Christian Bale previously in Much Ado About Nothing (with Leonard) and Henry V (with Bale).
References
External links
