288 SLAUGHTERHOUSE- FIVE
civilians. One of only seven Allied POWs in Dresden to survive the bombing, Von-
negut was assigned to corpse recovery and burial detail. The overwhelming horror
he experienced in Dresden would forever haunt him, indelibly coloring his world-
view and his work as a writer. After returning to Dresden on a Guggenheim Fel-
lowship in 1967, Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse- Five, Or The Children’s Crusade:
A Duty- Dance with Death, a fatalistic anti- war novel that blends fact, fiction, and
science fiction in inimitable Vonnegut fashion. Though critically acclaimed, a
National Book Award winner, and a runaway bestseller, Slaughterhouse- Five was
often banned and condemned, allegedly for its frank language and sexual refer-
ences, but mostly because it repudiated the myth of World War II as “The Good
War” by dramatizing an Allied war crime of truly monstrous proportions. In
March 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, producer Paul Monash purchased
the screen rights for Universal Pictures and was allotted a $3.2 million bud get to
make the film. Director George Roy Hill, Monash’s partner on Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid (1969), signed on to direct in May 1970. Screenwriter Stephen
Geller (Pretty Poison) was assigned the daunting task of adapting Vonnegut’s com-
plex novel to the screen. Michael Sacks, a 22- year- old stage actor, was hired in
March 1971 to play Billy Pilgrim, the hapless main character. Hill also recruited
Miloš Forman’s cinematographer, Miroslav Ondříček, to shoot the picture.Production
Slaughterhouse- Five was filmed in the early months of 1971 in the Czech Republic,
in Minnesota, and at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Hill shot most of the film at
Prague’s Barrandov Studios and in the city, which doubled for Dresden, while
Prague’s Praha hlavní nádraží (Main Railway Station) stood in for Dresden’s main
railway station. Billy Pilgrim’s otherworldly home— a geodesic dome on the myth-
ical planet of Tralfamadore— was built on a Universal sound stage. Scenes suppos-
edly taking place near Billy’s postwar home in upstate New York were actually
filmed at vari ous locations in the Minneapolis- St. Paul area. Because its plot involved
constant time disjunctive shifts between three disparate settings— World War II,
postwar suburban Amer i ca, and another planet— Slaughterhouse- Five hinged on
elaborate cross- cutting that demanded an expert editor. Fortunately, Hill employed
Dede Allen, widely acknowledged as one of Hollywood’s best.Plot Summary
In March 1968 a young lady and her husband pull up to a lakefront home in upstate
New York near the (fictional) town of Ilium, looking for her father. In the base-
ment of his home, Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks), a balding middle- aged man, is
typing a letter to his local newspaper, describing his involuntary time travels (i.e.,
being “unstuck in time”). While he is typing his letter, he finds himself back at the
Battle of the Bulge in Belgium in December 1944: a 22- year- old U.S. infantryman,
dressed in motley attire, unarmed, and running through the snow. He is accosted
by two other American soldiers, Paul Lazzaro (Ron Leibman) and Roland Weary
(Kevin Conway), as an enemy attack is in pro gress. Briefly, Billy finds himself back
on the planet Tralfamadore in a geodesic dome with Montana Wildhack (Valerie