The Graduate has become one of the most important movies of the latter half of the 20th century.
Featuring acclaimed performances from Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman, the movie not
only had a huge impact on the film industry but also American culture. Here's the untold
truth of The Graduate.
Benjamin, played by Dustin Hoffman, is supposed to be seen as a naïve young man compared
to Anne Bancroft's mature, seductive housewife character, Mrs. Robinson. The central taboo
of the film is their affair and the age difference between the two. But in reality, the actors
were only six years apart. Anne Bancroft was 35, playing a woman a decade older than herself,
and Hoffman was 29.
According to Vanity Fair, Gene Hackman, who was originally cast in the film as Mr. Robinson,
was fired and replaced with someone older in order to really drive home the age difference
between Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson.
However, director Mike Nichols wasn't bothered by the real-life six-year age difference between
the lead performers in his film. He told Vanity Fair...
"Both actors seemed to be the ages their characters were. That's acting."
Hoffman admitted in the same article that he was a neophyte, with The Graduate being
his first lead film role, and that Bancroft was an accomplished actress, so he felt they
had a unique and special relationship with one another.
Hoffman said about Bancroft...
"You're either working with people who are going for the same truth as you are or you're
not. She was. She had a character."
The Graduate would have been an entirely different film if the actors who Nichols originally
intended to work with had been cast in the two lead roles. Many stars auditioned or were
approached for the roles of Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson. Doris Day could have played Mrs.
Robinson. According to Vox, Nichols approached Day, but she turned it down, noting that the
part, quote, "offended [her] sense of values."
Robert Redford, who fit the physical description of Benjamin in the eponymous novel the film
was adapting, screen-tested for the part. Apparently, during the session, Nichols questioned
whether the very handsome Redford could convincingly play a loser who was capable of being rejected
by women.
"You're very nearly perfect."
"That's a rotten thing to say."
By the mid-1960s, Anne Bancroft had garnered a reputation as a serious film and stage actress
who was known for playing acclaimed roles, like her award-winning turn as blind Helen
Keller tutor Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. Many were concerned that the racy,
controversial role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate might ruin her career.
Nichols told Vanity Fair...
"Everyone cautioned her to turn it down. How can you go from the saintly Annie Sullivan
to the Medusa-like Mrs. Robinson? Too risky."
It's hard to imagine by today's standards that this type of role would legitimately
concern an actress about her future career prospects, but then again, The Graduate was
made just on the cusp of the beginnings of the sexual revolution. Anne Bancroft's husband,
Mel Brooks, convinced her to do the film. Brooks reportedly liked the script and had
worked with its screenwriter in the past. She followed his gut instinct, and in the
end, Anne nabbed a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance.
Despite the accolades she received for the role, Bancroft admitted to being resentful
of only becoming known as "Mrs. Robinson" for the rest of her career. She told the LA
Times in 1997...
"I'm still trying to get away from it."
"That's enough."
Before such classic comedies as Spaceballs and Blazing Saddles, there was The Producers.
Mel Brooks' freshman film broke comedic boundaries, satirized the Nazis, and was a wildly popular
movie that eventually became a successful musical and won Brooks an Oscar for Best Original
Screenplay.
Before The Graduate, Hoffman had a few minor roles under his belt. According to IndieWire,
Brooks approached Hoffman to be in The Producers and the young actor originally said yes to
playing the fanatical Hitler supporter, Franz Liebkind. However, Hoffman also asked Brooks'
permission to audition for The Graduate.
Brooks agreed, as he was aware of the script, considering that his wife, Anne Bancroft,
was already slated to star in it. Plus, he didn't think Hoffman stood a chance of getting
the role.
Brooks said...
"I thought this was all too bizarre. Go, you're a mutt. The minute they see you on film, they'll
say we got the wrong guy. He called me back two days later and said they want me."
This big break made Hoffman instantly famous and propelled him down a path to becoming
one of the most acclaimed dramatic actors of his generation.
Based on a low-selling, virtually unknown 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb,
the rights to The Graduate weren't on Hollywood's radar. Nichols was still a very green director
at this point, and actor-turned-writer Buck Henry had no screenwriting experience. The
film was also notoriously difficult to cast.
Despite all the challenges, the movie was acquired for a very low price and financed
by Embassy Pictures. The first screenings of the initial cut didn't impress executives,
either. They especially didn't like Nichols' choice for the leading man.
Much to everyone's surprise, however, the obscure, low-budget indie with an unknown
star was a runaway hit. It even included one of the greatest quotes in movie history…
"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"
Hollis Alpert, a film critic at the time, recalls the public's reaction to the movie
in The Guardian...
"Lines extended around the corner all the way down the block [...] except that the people
waiting for the next showing were not family groups but mostly young people in their teens
and early 20s. [...] It was as though they all knew they were going to see something
good, something made for them."
Dustin Hoffman was the physical opposite of the book's lead character, Benjamin Braddock,
who looked more like Nichols' first choice, Robert Redford. The character is described
in the book and screenplay as tall and handsome. Other hugely popular actors, such as Steve
McQueen and Warren Beatty were also being considered. Not only was Hoffman not the right
physical type, but he nearly blew his audition and even told Nichols he didn't think he was
right for the part.
When Nichols decided to cast him, it would shift the culture in Hollywood. Screenwriter
Buck Henry says in Vanity Fair...
"A whole generation changed its idea of what guys should look like [...] I think Dustin's
physical being brought a sort of social and visual change."
The infamous, highly dramatic church scene of The Graduate was inspired by Harold Lloyd's
1924 classic silent comedy Girl Shy. The film is about a shy tailor's apprentice with a
stutter who rushes to save the girl he loves from getting married to a bigamist. Nichols
was inspired by the film's climactic "race-to-rescue" sequence.
While filming The Graduate's wedding scene inside a United Methodist Church in California,
many bizarre complications arose. Apparently, the heat was unbearable, and there were so
many people crowded together on the set that Bancroft fainted at one point. According to
the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Hoffman nearly passed out as well.
But the strangest moment came when Hoffman's character is banging on the balcony glass
to get Elaine's attention, who is about to get married below him. He and the cast and
crew nearly got thrown out of the church by the pastor, Donald Woods. Hoffman says in
an interview included in the 2015 DVD release...
"In the middle of a take, I hear screaming. And it's the reverend! And he's screaming,
'Stop! Stop! Everybody out. That's it. Everybody out!'"
Apparently, the glass window Hoffman had been banging on was precious and irreplaceable,
which is why Hoffman taps on the window with his palms instead of banging with his fists
in the final cut.
Much like the 1960s shook up American socio-political culture, The Graduate was the very definition
of a late '60s film: controversial, at times taboo, breaking from convention, and grappling
with themes such as youth disillusionment and questioning societal norms. Politico points
out that if the film had come out prior to 1967, it might have been dismissed as, quote,
"cultural slander."
The Graduate came out the same year as the rebellious romantic caper film Bonnie and
Clyde and the critically acclaimed Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, but Benjamin isn't exactly
a counterculture hippie rebelling against society, as one might expect from a youth-centric
film of this time. In fact, he's a bit of a square. But the events that unfold due to
decisions he makes along the way conclude in a sort of symbolic character arc that pushes
him to his breaking point. As the final scene implies, he makes a conscious decision to
ignore society's rules and attempts to grasp at a life of free will.
As film historian Mark Harris states in Smithsonian Magazine's 50-year anniversary review, before
The Graduate was released, the studios believed, quote, "everything should appeal to everyone."
After dissecting what made the film so successful, executives came to the realization that almost
half their paying audience was under 24.
Why does The Graduate still resonate so strongly with movie audiences to this day? It may be
that its themes of questioning institutions, including marriage, higher education, and
the capitalist model, are all too applicable now.
Inside Higher Ed makes the argument that the film is, quote, "an emblem of youth alienation
in postwar America." After all, one of the most memorable exchanges of dialogue is when
a family friend of Benjamin's parents gives him a simple word of advice that concerns
his future…
"Just one word."
"Yes, sir."
"Are you listening?"
"Yes, I am."
"Plastics."
It's a not-so-subtle allegory of the generational gap and the growing distaste for consumer
culture and entering the adult world.
Reviews in 1967, like one by New York Times critic Bosley Crowther, praised the film,
calling it...
"One of the best seriocomic social satires we've had from Hollywood."
Walking the line between tragi-comedy and political satire may have put the film a bit
ahead of its time, seeming more novel to its audience than it would today. But history
repeats itself, and the themes of The Graduate certainly still hold significance in the 2020s.
Nichols approached Paul Simon to write three original songs for the film. However, one
track that wasn't meant for the film made the cut. Originally, the first line to the
famous "Mrs. Robinson" tune was "Here's to you, Mrs. Roosevelt."
In a Variety article, Nichols reminisces on the song's conception. He said that Simon
told him...
"It's a song about times past — about Mrs. [Eleanor] Roosevelt and Joe DiMaggio and stuff."
Nichols replied to him, quote, "It's now about Mrs. Robinson, not Mrs. Roosevelt."
Though the song became famously tied to the film, only a small portion of the chorus of
the song actually makes the cut of the movie, which leads to speculation that the song wasn't
even completed until after the film came out.
"Mrs. Robinson" became one of the most famous movie songs in film history and was also a
Number 1 hit, along with the soundtrack album, which was released in 1968. Due to the film's
popularity, the fairly obscure New York folk duo gained an entirely new audience. The track
also appeared on Simon & Garfunkel's next studio album Bookends and became one of their
most successful and beloved songs.
A walking tour entitled "The Story of the Graduate Movie" is given at U.C. Berkeley's
campus, taking fans of the film through its many backdrops and locations around town.
Stops on the tour include Ben's boarding house, an old Victorian building on campus; the famous
Moe's Books, where Ben stalks Elaine; and the Caffe Mediterraneum, where he keeps an
eye on the bookstore across the street. Other locations on the tour include the Theta Delta
Chi Fraternity house and Sproul Plaza.
The tour is guided by former Berkeley Historical Society president Steve Finacom. He spoke
to The Arizona Republic about the tours and why they're so popular, saying:
"I think people are interested in seeing places from history — even fictional history. The
'60s has a hold on the imagination. Berkeley did really capture the attention of the nation
in that era."
The same can be said of The Graduate, as the film continues to reverberate through popular
culture and capture the attention of viewers today, as much as it did in 1967.