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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Between Time and Timbuktu (or Prometheus-5) is a space fantasy comprised of excerpts from novels and stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. He was commissioned to be an adviser on and contributor to the script in 1971. The program was nationally aired on Public (Broadcasting) Television Stations on March 13, 1972. Many good people created funny stuff as the filming progressed, most notably Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, and with Fred Barzyk, the director. Created at WGBH Television studios in Boston. Starring William Hickey, the reluctant astronaut "Stony Stevenson", who won a sweepstakes "Blast-Off Space Food – Jingle Contest", and they come to the door of his house like Publishers Clearinghouse. His mother Mrs. Stevenson (Dortha Duckworth) answers the door. She later relocated to Mission Control during the time Stony is in space. The spaceflight is followed by Walter Gesundheit (Ray Goulding) and Budd Williams Jr. (Bob Elliott). In mission control is lead by Col. Donald "Tex" Pirandello (Franklin Cover) and Sandy Abernathy (Russell Morash) is a reporter covering the protest from the radical evangelist Dr. Bobby Denton (John Devlin), who was released yesterday from Federal Prison. He preached that Prometheus-5 is a Tower of Babel. The movie is a medley of the following Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. stores: Transported in time by the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum, he travels "one hundred and twenty million miles in three months, four days, thirteen hours, three minutes and seven seconds." The Island of San Lorenzo: (Cat's Cradle) He meets the leader "Bokonon (Kevin Mc Carthy)" who wrote "The books of Bokonon" and his "children" (followers) are referred to as Bokononoists. An island girl (Edie Lynch) and all are being chased by soldier (Jerry Gershman). The religion was outlawed by the President (to give more zest, more tang) and it did in the beginning… Then people practicing the religion started being executed. "I suppose that it goes to show that you have to be very careful who you pretend to be, because one day you may wake up to find that's what you are". The next stop in the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum is (Player Piano) where we meet Dr. Paul Proteus (James Sloyan) who is on trial for armed insurrection and treason. The prosecutor (George Serries) has a classic line: "In this unbiased essay we will see the fruits of our great society. This is the same society that the defendant wishes to destroy. This is the same society that is paying you for jury duty today. It is indeed "A Land of Plenty" (animated movie is shown). The next stop in the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum is a telephone booth in Schenectady (also from Player Piano), asking for change from a drunk (John Peters) who gives him coins saying "That is the saddest story I ever heard". Then next stop in the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum onto (Cat's Cradle) into the lobby of the "Hoenikker Laboratory of Immortality" (Hurd Hatfield) and assistant Miss Martin (Helen Stenborg) laying on a table, being thawed out. Disclosed is his research on "Ice Nine", a seed with a melting point of a hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit, to freeze mud for military applications. The next stop in the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum falls onto (Welcome to the Monkey House) with a Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers (Benay Venuta). This is a society where true equality is based on "handicapping everyone". In a TV studio, a ballet is being performed by two dancers, shackled and masked. Harrison Bergeron (Avind Haerum) suddenly breaks out of his handicaps, and removes the Ballerina (Alexis Hoff) handicaps. The strains of "Romeo and Juliet" fill the air. They dance. Meanwhile, a double-barrel shotgun is being loaded, and fired at the two dancers. Our next stop in the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum falls into "The Ethical Suicide Parlor, the population explosion has people massed and pressed against one another outside. Stony is escorted by Nancy (Susan Sullivan) delivers a tray of food to Lionel J. Howard (Charles White) while a TV commercial announcer (Phillip Bruns) plays in the room. Lionel J. Howard has chosen cyanide. His wife wanted him to take the carbon monoxide, but he told her "cyanide's more masculine". After taking the needle, his last request is "What are people for?" Next is a long line of candles quietly flickering and Stony with a kitten on a flat dry ground in wide empty arena at night (Happy Birthday Wanda June). Noise of a fire truck approaching: "Hi, I am Wanda June" (Ariane Munker). Stony asks "Am I dead?" Wanda replies "Nothing to be ashamed about, today was going to be my birthday, but I was hit by an ice cream truck before I could have my party. I am dead now, I am in heaven. Everybody up here is happy." The celebration comes to a discordant end as Hitler (Page Johnson) appears, goose-stepping and snarling from a balcony. "What a poor specimen of a man you are!" Stony replies "That's been said before". Hitler "Do you know who I am?" and Stony says "Yes. And you scare the hell out of me. More than anything I've seen in my life." Hitler: "I am death, and I am final. (Aside, awed by himself) God, am I ever final!" speaking to Wanda June "Go to the worms, my blond Teutonic child" Stony commands people to randomly appear and disappear. Next we see Stony working his way out of a grave in Brooklyn cemetery, reading epitaph on tombstone "Stony Stevenson. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." Stony walks away from the grave and approaches a man with a lawn mower (McIntyre Dixon) There's a tombstone back there… "Tombstone? An understatement is what that is." It says "Stony Stevenson, astronaut". He's not actually buried there, that's just a memorial his mother put up. He is out there in space or time, who knows where he is? His space capsule splashed down in the Pacific with a note and a half-empty bottle of Tang. The note said what's written on the tombstone.

If this movie was out on DVD, I would buy it today. My brother and I used to watch it every time it was on public television. I wish I could remember more of the plot. I remember it was funny, and poignant, and socially relevant. Please, somebody, release this movie for us fans!There was one "chapter" where the protagonist finds himself in a society where everyone is handicapped to the lowest level of ability, so no one will feel bad about not being good enough. Dancers wore big bags of sand, so they couldn't be more coordinated than their audience. The hero gets in trouble for insisting on letting people be who they really are. Maybe that's what I liked most about the movie, Vonnegut's insistence on the individual right to creatively express whatever they did best, at their best level of performance. It's not about perfectionism, but about expressing the gifts we are given.

I remembered hardly anything from this movie, which I saw on TV during it's original airing when I was a big Vonnegut fan. It must have made a strong impression on me, though, because my first thought whenever I see William Hickey, even before I recall the actor's name, is, "Hey, it's Stony Stevenson." Maybe it's just that the name is so catchy.Reading these comments gave me a strong desire to see it again -- hey, while I'm writing this, I just remembered, in the phone booth scene referenced in an earlier post, didn't Stony explain to someone that he was in Schenectady? Would sure like to see this one again, or even read it but it can't be read, can it, since it's a compilation of many different Vonnegut stories. I do remember the Chrono Synclastic Infidibulum from The Sirens of Titan. Did Billy Pilgrim go through that as well?

Between Time and Timbuktu was an effort at doing an introductory "best-of-Kurt-Vonnegut" for national TV. Although some Vonnegut fans think it's a diluted mess (see the book reviews), it serves well as a quirky intro to some of his themes and characters. William Hickey is wonderful as the bewildered "astronaut", and Bob and Ray are at their peak, with some hysterically funny dialogue. Why isn't it available on video?