Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

“I have become unstuck in time.” Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks) becomes “unstuck in time” in this fascinating adaptation of the classic Kurt Vonnegut novel. The film jumps back in forth between the firebombing of Dresden during World War II, Pilgrim’s droll suburban existence as a boring optometrist and life on the planet Tralfamadore. Directed by George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), Slaughterhouse-Five also stars Ron Leibman as the sadistic “Paul Lazzaro,” Eugene Roche as “Edgar Derby,” Sharon Gans as “Valencia Merble Pilgrim,” Valerie Perrine as “Montana Wildhack,” Holly Near as “Barbara Pilgrim” and Perry King as “Robert Pilgrim.” Glenn Gould composed the music for the film. Vonnegut once remarked, “I love George Roy Hill and Universal Pictures, who made a flawless translation of my novel Slaughterhouse-Five to the silver screen . . . I drool and cackle every time I watch that film, because it is so harmonious with what I felt when I wrote the book.”

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