If you had a major paper due on Kurt Vonnegut and hadn’t read any of the books, what would you do? If you’re millionaire Thorton Melon, you call in the man himself.
Kurt Vonnegut’s cameo in the Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back to School is one of the 1986 film’s best gags. Melon pays Vonnegut to write the paper on Vonnegut’s own work, only to be told by the professor Melon is in love with (Sally Kellerman) that whoever wrote it “doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.” Keith Gordon, who co-starred in the film as Dangerfield’s son, was a big Vonnegut fan and was starstruck by the legendary author’s appearance.
Keith Gordon:
The biggest thing I remember is some regret that I didn't talk to Kurt more because I was really intimidated. He was such a hero figure for me, and I'd never met him before. Kurt was the nicest guy in the world, and we did chat. I was able to say thank you so much for your books and we talked, but I would've loved to have just hung out, and as I learned later when I got to know him on Mother Night, it would've been fine, but I felt afraid of imposing. So we talked a little bit, but that was it. I remember feeling, "Oh, I wish I had been a little bit braver about talking to the guy." But I was never very good at that.
Kurt was a childhood hero, but he was super nice. He seemed to really like Rodney. They really hit it off, which in a way makes perfect sense because they both were very funny. Kurt always appreciated a good joke and Rodney was literally a walking joke catalog. They seemed to just get along famously. In some ways they couldn't have seemed more different, but boy did they click. I was very glad to have had the opportunity to meet him, even as I thought, "Why didn't I bring my books for him to sign and why didn't I ask him about how he wrote this…?”
Vonnegut also has a cameo in the adaptation of his novel Mother Night, directed by Gordon and written by Vonnegut’s longtime friend, Robert B. Weide, who directed the documentary Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time. In a scene near the film’s end, as a dazed Howard W. Campbell, Jr. (Nick Nolte) contemplates death while frozen on a sidewalk, he sees Vonnegut among the pedestrians on a crowded city street. Though it was not part of the script, Gordon and Weide jumped at the chance when they learned Vonnegut planned to visit the set.
Keith Gordon:
Kurt was willing to come at that time and to do that moment and it was really thrilling because it was not something we had planned on. But a lot of times when you're making a film, the things that you like best are things that you didn't necessarily plan. Opportunities arise that you didn't see coming, and that was one of those really magical things. It's one of my favorite moments in the movie, sort of a little piece of magic. The film had a lot of those magical things working out really well.
For the complete interview, see Talking Vonnegut: Centennial Interviews and Essays.
Hollywood’s treatment of Vonnegut’s novels might best be described as the good, the bad, and the ugly. Slaughterhouse-Five (directed by George Roy Hill) and Gordon’s Mother Night are strong films, but Alan Rudolph’s 1999 version of Breakfast of Champions, despite a strong cast (Bruce Willis, Nick Nolte, Barbara Hershey, Omar Epps) is a mess. In an interview at the end of the audiobook for the novel, Vonnegut considered it “painful to watch.” Even worse is Slapstick of Another Kind (1982), directed by Steven Paul. Vonnegut himself didn’t think much of the novel, and the film, about genius twins sent to Earth from another planet, is infantile, unfunny, and nearly unwatchable.
A rarely screened adaptation of Vonnegut’s play Happy Birthday, Wanda June, from 1971, stars Rod Steiger and Susannah York. It’s worth watching if you’ve never seen or read the play. While better than the dreadful Slapstick of Another Kind, it doesn’t measure up to Slaughterhouse-Five or Mother Night. It’s free to watch on YouTube.
How well do you know the film adaptations of Kurt Vonnegut’s work? Test your knowledge with this short quiz.
1) Which 1950’s comedy legend starred in Slapstick of Another Kind?
a. Milton Berle
b. Jerry Lewis
c. Sid Ceasar
d. Danny Kaye
2) Which Twin Peaks actress played dual roles in Mother Night as Helga and Resi Noth?
a. Sheryl Lee
b. Madchen Amick
c. Sherilynn Fenn
d. Joan Chen
3) Which Laugh-In star provided the voice of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Mother Night?
a. Dick Martin
b. Arte Johnson
c. Dan Rowan
d. Henry Gibson
4) Which five-time Oscar nominee played Vonnegut’s alter ego Kilgore Trout in Breakfast of Champions?
a. Kevin Kline
b. Albert Finney
c. John Cazale
d. Christopher Walken
5) In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim shares a cage in a zoo on Tralfamadore with the porn actress Montana Wildhack, played by which actress?
a. Susan Sarandon
b. Olivia Hussey
c. Valerie Perrine
d. Karen Black
Answers: 1) b, 2) a, 3) d, 4) b, 5) c
For more, see Talking Vonnegut: Centennial Interviews and Essays