Cinema
The Graduate
Mike Nichols · 1967
Synopsis
Benjamin Braddock returns to his parents' home in Pasadena, a graduate of an Eastern university. At the party given for his return, his distinctions are listed and the guests press him about his future. Mrs Robinson, the wife of his father's partner, has him drive her home, undresses in her daughter Elaine's bedroom and tells him he can call her whenever he likes. He ends up arranging to meet her at a hotel, under a false name, and spends the summer floating on the pool by day and meeting her at night. His parents and Mr Robinson urge him to invite Elaine out.
Context
It is its director's second film, after an adaptation that Elizabeth Taylor had asked him to make, and it earned him his only Academy Award for Best Director. The lead role went to Dustin Hoffman, a twenty-nine-year-old off-Broadway stage actor, when a blond leading man had been expected, and Robert Redford was set aside. The summer montage opens with a song by the duo and runs on into a second, added later.
Who it is for
A film of one hundred and six minutes, in Technicolor and Panavision, in which Anne Bancroft plays Mrs Robinson.
Prizes and reception
Academy Award for Best Director in 1968, the biggest success of 1967 in North America, and entered in the National Film Registry in 1996.
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