Arrow Video's New 4K Film Restoration Of Director George Roy Hill's Slaughterhouse-Five Heads To Blu-ray On Dec. 3

Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a new 4K film restoration (from the original camera negative) of director George Roy Hill’s masterful 1972 film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s own experiences as a prisoner of war during World War II — specifically, the fire-bombing of Dresden in February of 1945 — Slaughterhouse-Five.   The street date for this new Blu-ray release will be Dec. 3.

Back in 1969 George Roy Hill directed the Best Picture nominee, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which also earned him the Oscar-nomination for Best Director (he would win the Oscar for directing The Sting in 1973).   The executive producer on the film was Paul Monash, but Academy rules at the time made John Forman the official “producer” of the film and hence he, not Monash, got the Oscar nomination for Best Picture (a minor point).   

At about the same time that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was achieving box office glory, Monash discovered a novel by Kurt Vonnegut and fell in love with it and immediately purchased the screen rights.   Naturally, he turned to George Roy Hill who agreed to direct the film, but the late William Goldman, who won the Oscar for his Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, begged-off on adapting the novel for the screen because he though it to be too difficult.

Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time.   He jumps between his mundane existence as an optometrist in “Ilium, New York,” being a POW in Germany in World War II and his sexual liaison with Montana Wildhack on the planet of Tralfamadore (in all three cases Billy is metaphorically-speaking, a prisoner).    So one can easily see why the skillful Goldman thought that it might be a bridge too far to bring Vonnegut’s novel to the screen.

Steve Geller, who had written both the novel and then adapted it for the screen — Pretty Poison (in 1968) — seemed an odd choice by Monash, but that’s who got the call.   The final film product did “OK” at the time, nothing special, but in hindsight it was one of the best films of 1972 — a year in which The Godfather ruled the cinematic universe.   And, of course, Kurt Vonnegut went on to be regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20^th Century.

As to the cast, Michael Sacks made his film debut here as Billy Pilgrim, he would go on to star in such films as The Sugarland Express and The Amityville Horror and then retire to the world of finance.   

Another key member of the cast was Valerie Perrine (also her official film debut … she appeared without credit in Diamonds are Forever the previous year) as Montana Wildhack — she would be nominated for Best Actress in Lenny two years later, but is perhaps best remembered as Eve Teschmacher in Superman and Superman II.

Rounding out the cast are Eugene Roche as Edgar Derby, a fellow POW of Pilgrim — who is executed by the SS — Ron Leibman as the irrational Paul Lazzaro (also a POW who develops a hatred for Pilgrim) … and Billy Pilgrim’s family, folk legend Holly Near as his wife, with Perry King and Sharon Gans as his children.   

As to bonus nuggets, there is a newly-minted commentary by author and film critic Troy Howarth (“The Haunted World of Mario Bava”), a newly-prepared video session with author and critic Kim Newman and four production featurettes — “Pilgrim’s Progress: Playing Slaughterhouse-Five” (featuring Perry King), “Only on Earth: Presenting Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Unstuck in Time: Documenting Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Eternally Connected: Composing Slaughterhouse-Five.”