The Graduate
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| The Graduate | |
 International theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | Mike Nichols |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Joseph E. Levine Lawrence Turman |
| Written by | Screenplay: Calder Willingham Buck Henry Novel: Charles Webb |
| Starring | Dustin Hoffman Anne Bancroft Katharine Ross William Daniels |
| Music by | Score: Dave Grusin Songs: Paul Simon |
| Cinematography | Robert Surtees |
| Editing by | Sam O'Steen |
| Distributed by | Embassy Pictures (US) United Artists (non-US) |
| Release date(s) | December 21, 1967 |
| Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3 million (est.) |
| Gross revenue | $104,397,102 |
The Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols, based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay is by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as the hotel clerk. The film tells the story of Ben Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman), a recent university graduate with no well-defined aim in life, who is seduced by an older woman, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), and then falls in love with her daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross).
In 1996, The Graduate was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It ranked as the seventh greatest film of all time on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, and placed #18 on the list of highest-grossing films in the United States and Canada, adjusted for inflation.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Benjamin Braddock returns home, shortly after earning his bachelor's degree from an unnamed college in the northeast United States, to a party celebrating his graduation at his parents' house in Pasadena, a satellite city of Los Angeles. Benjamin is visibly uncomfortable at the party attended by his parents' friends. He remains aloof while his parents deliver accolades and neighborhood friends ask him about his future plans. Benjamin escapes from each person who comes to congratulate him, exposing his seeming embarrassment at all the honors he had won at college. Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father's law partner, asks Benjamin to drive her home, which he reluctantly does.
Arriving at her home, she pleads for Benjamin to come inside, saying that she does not like to enter a dark house. Once inside, she forces a drink on him, and later exposes herself to him offering to have an affair with him. Initially flustered, he is immediately shocked by her advances and flees. A few days later he calls her and their affair begins.
Benjamin is clearly uncomfortable with sexuality, but he is drawn into the affair with the older, but still attractive, Mrs. Robinson. Their affair appears to last most of the summer.
Meanwhile Benjamin is hounded by his father to select a graduate school to attend. Benjamin, clearly not interested in pursuing his studies, shrugs off his father's wishes and spends his time lounging about and sleeping with Mrs. Robinson. His affair may serve as an escape from his lack of direction or ambition, and his fear and anxiety of his impending future. Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton), unaware of his wife's budding affair, encourages Benjamin to call on his daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross), and Benjamin's parents repeatedly encourage him to date her. During one liaison, Mrs. Robinson forces a promise from Ben to never date Elaine. Whether out of fear of Mrs. Robinson, or sensing that getting involved with the daughter of his lover could be disastrous, he tries to avoid it. However, because of the three parents' persistent intervention, he is essentially forced to date her. Therefore, he tries to ensure his date with her will be a disaster so she would not want to pursue courtship with him. He drives recklessly, practically ignoring Elaine, and then takes her to a strip club where she is openly humiliated and silently begins to cry.
After she storms out of the establishment, he is overcome with guilt and pursues her, apologizes, and then kisses her. What follows is a courtship with the younger Robinson: exactly what Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson were trying to avoid.
From here, Benjamin's life falls apart. He confesses the affair to Elaine (under threat of exposure by Mrs. Robinson) and is subsequently kicked out of her life. Although he follows Elaine to UC Berkeley, where she is a student, he is barred from seeing Elaine any further. She proceeds to become engaged to another man (Brian Avery), one her parents find acceptable. However, Benjamin, believing (with some justification) that she loves him, refuses to give up hope, despite warnings and threats of arrest from Mr. Robinson.
Benjamin undertakes a desperate drive across a distance of many miles to somehow head off Elaine's wedding in Santa Barbara. He is forced to stop for directions, his car, an Alfa Romeo Spider, runs out of gas, and he is ultimately forced to run the final few blocks. He arrives just as the bride and groom are about to kiss, and stands looking down at the couple from an upper window. He fears for a moment that he is too late, but begins pounding on the glass anyway screaming "Elaine! Elaine!". This does not garner much response at first, but when Elaine gives the return cry "Ben!", mayhem ensues.
After a violent struggle with Elaine's parents and wedding guests (Ben armed only with a large cross), Ben and Elaine escape on a public bus. The escaping couple sits smiling at the back of the bus, the other passengers stare at them in mute disbelief. The soundtrack at this point is Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence". Ben's smile fades to an enigmatic, neutral, somewhat uncomfortable expression as he gazes forward into the bus. As Elaine looks at Ben's expression, she takes on a similar gaze.
[edit] Cast
- Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock
- Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson
- Katharine Ross as Elaine Robinson
- Murray Hamilton as Mr. Robinson
- William Daniels as Mr. Braddock
- Elizabeth Wilson as Mrs. Braddock
- Buck Henry as Room Clerk
- Brian Avery as Carl Smith
- Norman Fell as Mr. McCleery
also (uncredited):
- Mike Farrell as a bellhop at the hotel
- Richard Dreyfuss as Boarding House Resident
- Ben Murphy as the shaving student in the fraternity house
- Kevin Tighe as Carter, Carl Smith's fraternity brother
[edit] Production
[edit] Screenplay
The original screenplay had the movie opening with Benjamin delivering a valedictory speech at his college commencement. The ceremony is outdoors and Benjamin is using notes on sheets of paper to aid his speech. Having rhetorically asked what the point of college was he begins to explain the reasons are obvious. At that point a gust of wind blows his note sheets off the podium leaving Benjamin unable to explain what it was all about. He is left stammering at the podium "it's because, it's because..." only to awaken from his dream to find the jetliner he is riding in is about to land. This foreshadowing was not included in the movie and the opening scenes show Benjamin on the airplane as it lands, then standing on the moving walkway in the airport terminal looking lost and forlorn. However, the idea was used for the opening of the film Reality Bites (1994).
[edit] Casting
Warren Beatty was originally offered the title role of Benjamin Braddock, but he turned it down, due to the filming of Bonnie and Clyde.[1] Robert Redford tested for the part, but he and director Mike Nichols decided they needed someone who appeared more uncomfortable with his sexuality.[1] Charles Grodin tested for the role. Burt Ward was offered the role of Benjamin, but had to decline to his commitments to the television show Batman.[1]
Natalie Wood tested but was turned down for the role of Elaine. Sally Field was strongly considered for the part, but the role was given to Katharine Ross instead. Ross' screen test with Grodin is a special feature on the Laserdisc release, although Grodin's lines were overdubbed at his request.
When work on the adaptation of the book began back in late 1962, Marilyn Monroe was slated to play Mrs. Robinson. Patricia Neal was the first choice of the producers, but she turned the role down because she had not yet fully recovered from a stroke. Actress and singer Doris Day was approached to play Mrs. Robinson, but passed on the offer.
Dustin Hoffman was playing a 21-year-old college graduate, but was actually 29 during filming and 30 when the film was released. Anne Bancroft, whose character is in her early 40s, was only 6 years older than Hoffman in real life. Similarly, Katharine Ross, who played her daughter, was only 9 years younger than Bancroft.
The Graduate was the breakthrough role for Hoffman, whose sole previous film role was in The Tiger Makes Out (1967). His next big successes (and Oscar nominations) came from Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, and All the President's Men.
In the Berkeley boarding house where Benjamin ends up living, the landlord is played by Norman Fell, who would later gain fame as landlord "Mr. Roper" on the popular 1970s sitcom Three's Company. Richard Dreyfuss has his first film role in this movie, a small and uncredited one, and only one line: "Shall I get the cops? I'll get the cops." Earlier in the film, Mike Farrell, later a star of TV's M*A*S*H, can be glimpsed as one of the hotel bellhops when Benjamin and Elaine go there, asking "Hello. How are you sir?" Ben Murphy, who later starred in Alias Smith and Jones, is the shaving student in the fraternity house who makes a double entendre comment about the wedding cake. Kevin Tighe of Emergency! is featured as Carl Smith's fraternity brother Carter who, when asked by Benjamin where Carl is getting married, replies "at his old man's house... or the maternity ward!"
Tom House, a former major-league pitcher and coach, can be seen as well during the scene with Richard Dreyfus, with a beatnik-type beard. House was getting a graduate degree at Berkeley at the time and was recruited as an extra.
William Daniels, who played Benjamin's father Mr. Braddock, is known for his roles as the voice of K.I.T.T. on the 1980s television program Knight Rider, as obsessive-compulsive surgeon Mark Craig in the 1980s hospital drama St. Elsewhere, and as teacher George Feeny in the 1990s sitcom Boy Meets World. He also starred in the film adaptation of the musical 1776 as John Adams.
Elizabeth Wilson, who played Benjamin's mother, Mrs. Braddock, was a familiar face on television during the 1970s, guest-starring in such series as All in the Family, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show; among her other film roles, she played a pivotal role in the 1980 workplace comedy Nine to Five.
Murray Hamilton, who played Mr. Robinson, was a veteran character actor, best known for playing the mayor in Jaws.
Veteran actresses Marion Lorne and Alice Ghostley appear together in a brief party scene. The pairing was somewhat coincidental, for Ghostley would go on to costar on the sitcom Bewitched, in a role largely designed to replace Lorne's character when that actress died in May 1968.
[edit] Filming
Many of the exterior shots of Benjamin on the campus were actually filmed on the brick campus of USC in Los Angeles, as the UC Berkeley campus features buildings with gray granite exteriors. Other scenes were filmed on the Berkeley campus, on Durant Avenue in Berkeley, and on Telegraph Avenue. In one shot, the red Alfa Romeo Spider is traveling across San Francisco Bay on the upper deck of the suspension section of the Bay Bridge; this is actually westbound into San Francisco, although Ben is supposed to be on his way to Berkeley, which would be eastbound on the lower deck.
The "Taft Hotel" scenes were filmed at the famed Ambassador Hotel, the same hotel in which U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated less than six months after the film's release.
While supposedly on his way to interrupt Elaine's wedding in Santa Barbara, Ben is shown driving through a tunnel on U.S. Highway 101. The actual tunnel is on the northbound lanes, just north of Gaviota, yet Ben is driving south from Berkeley.
The church used for the wedding scene is actually the United Methodist Church in LaVerne. In a commentary audio released with the 40th anniversary DVD, Hoffman revealed that he was uneasy about the scene in which he pounds on the church window, as the owner of the church had been watching the filming disapprovingly. Apparently, Hoffman's Christ-like pose when banging on the pane was an attempt to minimize its rattling, rather than an intentional religious reference.
The residence used for the Robinsons' house was located on North Palm Drive in Beverly Hills.
There are repeated subliminal shots of Mrs. Robinson's bare breasts and midriff in the scene in Elaine's room when Benjamin has been trapped by Mrs. Robinson. The shots match Benjamin's eyeline while he is looking at her and trying to escape.
One of the Campus Loop buses at Kent State University in the 1970s had a plaque in it identifying it as a "movie star" and stating that it was the bus Benjamin and Elaine escape on at the end of the film.
[edit] Music
The film boosted the profile of folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, whose soundtrack album (The Graduate Original Soundtrack), on the strength of the hit single "Mrs. Robinson", rose to the top of the charts in 1968 (knocking off The Beatles' White Album). However, the version that appears in the film is markedly different from the hit single version, which would not be issued until Simon and Garfunkel's next album, Bookends. The actual film version of "Mrs. Robinson" does appear on the "Graduate" soundtrack LP.
According to a Variety article by Peter Bart in the 15 May 2005 issue, Nichols had become obsessed with Simon & Garfunkel's music while shooting the film. Lawrence Turman, his producer, made a deal for Simon to write three new songs for the movie. By the time they were nearly finished editing the film, Simon had only written one new song. Nichols begged him for more but Simon, who was touring constantly, told him he didn't have the time. He did play him a few notes of a new song he had been working on; "It's not for the movie... it's a song about times past — about Mrs. Roosevelt and Joe DiMaggio and stuff." Nichols advised Simon, "It's now about Mrs. Robinson, not Mrs. Roosevelt."
[edit] Marketing
In the promotional poster for the film, Mrs. Robinson's leg is not that of Anne Bancroft, but of the then-unknown model Linda Gray — most famous for playing Sue Ellen Ewing in the television soap Dallas. Linda Gray went on to play the role of Mrs. Robinson in the stage version of The Graduate in the West End and on Broadway.[2]
[edit] Reception
A.D. Murphy of Variety and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised the film upon its release with Murphy describing it as a "delightful satirical comedy-drama"[3] and Ebert claiming it was the "funniest American comedy of the year".[4]
For the film's thirtieth anniversary reissue, Roger Ebert reversed his opinion on the film.[5] He, along with Gene Siskel, gave the film a mediocre review on the television program Siskel & Ebert.[6]
[edit] Awards and honors
Dustin Hoffman earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as did Bancroft and Ross.
Along with the acting nominations, the film received nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. Mike Nichols won the Academy Award for Best Director.
The film won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Editing (to Sam O'Steen).
In 1996, The Graduate was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and placed #18 on the list of highest-grossing films in the United States and Canada, adjusted for inflation.
American Film Institute recognition
- 1998: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies #7
- 2000: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs #9
- 2002: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions #52
- 2004: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs:
- "Mrs. Robinson" #6
- 2005: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes:
- "Plastics." #42
- "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?" #63
- 2007: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) #17
[edit] Stage adaptation
John Reid produced a play in 2000, adapted from the movie, which was a hit both in London's West End and on Broadway and has toured the United States. There is a Brazilian version adapted by Miguel Falabella. Several actresses have starred as Mrs. Robinson, including Kathleen Turner, Lorraine Bracco, Jerry Hall, Amanda Donohoe, Morgan Fairchild, Anne Archer, Vera Fischer and Linda Gray. The Broadway production in 2002 starred Kathleen Turner, Jason Biggs, and Alicia Silverstone.
The play often receives media attention due to a sequence that requires the (often notable) actress playing Mrs. Robinson to disrobe and act a scene in the nude. Some productions of the play incorporate an on-stage topless love scene involving the Mrs. Robinson character.
[edit] Possibility of sequel
Charles Webb has written a sequel to his original novel titled Home School, but initially refused to publish it in its entirety because of a contract he signed in the 1960s. When he sold film rights to The Graduate, he surrendered the rights to any sequels. If he were to publish Home School, Canal+, the French media company that owns the rights to The Graduate, would be able to adapt it for the screen without his permission.[7] Extracts of Home School were printed in The Times on May 2, 2006.[8] Webb also told the newspaper that there was a possibility he would find a publisher for the full text, provided he could retrieve the film rights using French intellectual property law.[9] On 30 May 2006 The Times reported that Webb had signed a publishing deal for Home School with Random House which he hoped would enable him to instruct the French lawyers to attempt to retrieve his rights. The novel was released in Britain in 2007.[10]
In Robert Altman's Hollywood satire The Player (1992), Buck Henry, co-writer of The Graduate, plays a screenwriter (himself, in fact, as Buck Henry was a screenwriter on the original film) attempting to pitch a sequel to The Graduate to a Hollywood producer. Henry's character reminds the producer that the leading actors are all still alive and envisages a scenario in which Ben, Elaine and Mrs. Robinson live together in a ménage à trois.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c Complete list of actors who were considered for roles at notstarring.com
- ^ Linda Gray at the Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
- ^ [1] - A.D. Murphy, Variety review, December 18, 1967.
- ^ [2] - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, December 26, 1967.
- ^ [3] - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, March 28, 1997.
- ^ [4] - Siskel & Ebert review, 1997.
- ^ http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1446288,00.html Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
- ^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7-2160200,00.html Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
- ^ http://timesnews.typepad.com/news/2006/05/stuck_in_a_lega.html Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
- ^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2202109,00.html Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
[edit] External links
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Graduate |
- Official website
- The Graduate at the Internet Movie Database
- The Graduate at the TCM Movie Database
- The Graduate at Allmovie
- The Graduate at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Graduate at Filmsite.org
- The Graduate at Box Office Mojo
- Making of article in Vanity Fair magazine
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming |
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy 1968 |
Succeeded by Oliver! |
| Preceded by A Man for All Seasons |
BAFTA Award for Best Film 1968 |
Succeeded by Midnight Cowboy |
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