Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

Director:

George Roy Hill

Writers:

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (novel)
Stephen Geller (screenplay)

Release Date:

15 March 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Fantasy | Sci-Fi | War

Tagline:

A Man Becomes Unstuck In Time In The Film That Became A Classic.

Plot:

A man tells his story of how he became unstuck in time and abducted by aliens.

Plot Keywords:

Pilgrim | Alien | Future | Planet | Optometrist

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 3 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Michael Sacks	...	Billy Pilgrim
Ron Leibman	...	Paul Lazzaro
Eugene Roche	...	Edgar Derby
Sharon Gans	...	Valencia Merble Pilgrim
Valerie Perrine	...	Montana Wildhack
Holly Near	...	Barbara Pilgrim
Perry King	...	Robert Pilgrim
Kevin Conway	...	Roland Weary
Friedrich von Ledebur	...	German Leader (as Friedrich Ledebur)
Ekkehardt Belle	...	Young German Guard (as Nick Belle)
Sorrell Booke	...	Lionel Merble
Roberts Blossom	...	Wild Bob Cody
John Dehner	...	Prof. Rumfoord
Gary Waynesmith	...	Stanley
Richard Schaal	...	Howard W. Campbell Jr.

Runtime:

104 min | Canada:93 min (Ontario - edited version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System) | 4-Track Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Canada:PA (Ontario - edited version) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | USA:R | Australia:M | UK:X (original rating) | UK:15 (re-rating) (1988)

Filming Locations:

Downtown Airport - 2700 Airport Road, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Dirk Benedict auditioned for the part of Robert Pilgrim but director George Roy Hill preferred Perry King.

Quotes:

Tralfamadorian speaker: We know how the world ends and it has nothing to do with Earth, except that it gets wiped out too.
Billy Pilgrim: Really? How does it end?
Tralfamadorian speaker: While we're experimenting with new fuels, a Tralfamadorian test pilot panics, presses the wrong button, and the whole universe disappears.
Billy Pilgrim: But you have to stop him. If you know this, can't you keep the pilot from pressing ...
Tralfamadorian speaker: He has always pressed it, and he always will. We have always let him, and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Supernatural: The Monster at the End of This Book (#4.18)" (2009)

Soundtrack:

Concerto No 3 for Harpsichord in D major, BWV 1054 - 3rd movement 'Allegro'

Luminous and haunting

There seems always to be something exhilaratingly depressing about Vonnegut's work. It's as if our lives were slowly coming apart at the seams. There always seems to be an element of tragic waste in his characters' lives, and never is the feeling more evident than in the book and film of "Slaugherhouse-Five." It's not surprising to learn that Vonnegut really did live through the firebombing of Dresden during World War II.

If there's a weak element of the film, it's the bombing itself. By never letting the audience see outside the bomb shelter Pilgrim was in (and if so, not making it vivid enough for me to remember it), the horror and sheer magnitude of the event is downplayed. Two hundred thousand people died in the destruction of one of the greatest, most majestic cities in all of Europe, and all we're given is a shaking camera. Those who've read the book know that the trajedy was conveyed all to well by Vonnegut's skillful, near-photographic descriptions of the event and its aftermath. Very little of it made it to the screen.

Aside from that, George Roy Hill does an excellent job of communicating the existential dread of what must have been thought to be an unfilmable novel. The fate of Pilgrim's wife through her reckless driving could have come off as tasteless black comedy, but any cheap laughs are thankfully avoided, and the sequence is as shocking as it is heartbreaking. The really far-out parts of the novel (the four-dimensional aliens, Vonnegut's conception of the future and the end of the universe) are done with complete seriousness; another director might have had a condescending approach to the material, and killed the magic. The novel, by itself, is one of the best I've ever read -- it gleefully trashes the rules of standard novel-making, narration, and continuity, and manages to tell a real whale of a tale (there's a lot of weird stuff to swallow in it.) When I saw Hill credited as director, I moaned in agony, recalling the headaches that were induced by his smug, syrupy box office smashes "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting." After those two, I gave up all hope in Hill, the same way I did with Richard Lester after "Petulia" and "Help!" By the end of the movie, however, I ate my words. It's a beautiful, thought-provoking, and enchanting film, and does justice to a fine novel.