Since George Roy Hill's previous film had been Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and had made a lot of money, it probably gave him the clout to take a shot at a Vonnegut novel, Slaughterhouse Five.
The story follows the protagonist Billy Pilgrim as he relives his life which includes the firebombing of Dresden during World War II, his infatuation with a porn star, and his life on a planet named Trafalmadore, in a non sequential timeline.
I have to give the filmmakers credit considering all the jumping back in forth in time from scene to scene,. They did a very good job of keeping the focus of the film on the personal journey of Billy Pilgrim.
Editing is everything in a film like this since it is extremely important to keep all the various film threads clear so the audience can follow the overall Vonngeut theme of how fate affects mankind.
The cast is mostly character actors for a change, no major star to take the focus off of the story. Parts of the film were shot in my home state of Minnesota (the winter parts naturally).
Slaughterhouse Five is probably not a film that would appeal to everyone and I doubt a major studio, much less Universal Studios when even consider making a film from a book by a writer as cultish as Kurt Vonnegut in the present Hollywood environment.
Slaughterhouse Five is a more than decent attempt to make a though provoking film out of a novel that probably had a specialized following at best. Apparently Vonnegut was pleased with the adaptation of his book.
104 minutes.
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