George Roy Hill, who directed the coy long-windedness of Thoroughly Modern Millie as well as regaling us with such a jubilant tone poem as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, hovers here between the funny and the touching and the glum. Slaughterhouse-Five, based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is like a simplified Resnais film. Almost from the outset we are informed that the non-hero Billy Pilgrim has 'come unstuck in time' and keeps jolting back and forth among his past and future experiences. When he was a very young prisoner during the Second World war, the fire bombing of Dresden had a traumatic effect upon him. Peacetime brought surburban conformity in the States, with a plump and witless wife, material success, and a pet dog for real company. Moreover, beyond this earth looms the planet Trafalmadore, where the unseen powers decide to transport a pair of...