The IMDB trivia on this iconic film is a wonderful read.
RIP Mike Nichols
The Graduate (1967)
In Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft's
first encounter in the hotel room, Bancroft did not know that Hoffman
was going to grab her breast. Hoffman decided off-screen to do it,
because it reminded him of schoolboys trying to nonchalantly grab girls'
breasts in the hall by pretending to put their jackets on. When Hoffman
did it onscreen, director Mike Nichols
began laughing loudly off-screen. Hoffman began to laugh as well, so
rather than stop the scene, he turned away from the camera and walked to
the wall. Hoffman banged his head on the wall, trying to stop laughing,
and Nichols thought it was so funny, he left it in.
When Dustin Hoffman showed up at Joseph E. Levine's office for a casting interview, the producer mistook him for a window cleaner, so Hoffman, in character, cleaned a window.
Two interesting camera techniques are used in the film. In the scene
where Benjamin is running, he is shown at some distance running straight
at the camera, an effect which makes him look as if he getting nowhere
as he's running. (This technique is accomplished with a very long
telephoto lens, which foreshortens distances in relation to the camera.)
In another scene, Benjamin is walking from the right side of the screen
to the left, while everyone else in the scene is moving from left to
right. In western culture, things that move left to right seem natural
(think of the direction you read words on a page), those that move right
to left seem to be going the wrong way. These two visual techniques
echo the themes of the film, Benjamin is going the wrong way, and
getting nowhere in life.
Apparently, Dustin Hoffman's screen test consisted of him fumbling his lines and awkwardly trying to grab Katharine Ross's behind, which angered her. As he left thinking he didn't get the role, his awkwardness was just what director Mike Nichols needed for Benjamin Braddock.
When Elaine tracks down Ben in his gloomy room and he causes her to
scream, a number of other tenants gather behind the landlord in the
doorway. One says, "Shall I get the cops? I'll get the cops..." It's Richard Dreyfuss.
In the famous promotional still for this film, Dustin Hoffman is seen in the background framed by Mrs. Robinson's shapely leg. The leg in that photo didn't belong to Anne Bancroft, however; it belonged to a then-unknown model, Linda Gray, who later played Mrs. Robinson in a London stage musical of The Graduate.
None of the older characters has their first name identified in the
film; only the younger characters of Benjamin, Elaine and Carl do,
increasing the sense of a generation gap.
Although Mrs. Robinson is supposed to be much older than Benjamin, Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman
are just under six years apart in age. He looked naturally boyish, and
she was made up to look older. For the same reason, Bancroft was only 8
years older than her "daughter" Katharine Ross, William Daniels (Mr. Braddock) only 10 years older than his "son" Hoffman.
Robert Redford screen-tested with Candice Bergen for the part of Benjamin Braddock but was finally rejected by director Mike Nichols
because Nichols did not believe Redford could persuasively project the
underdog qualities necessary to the role. When he told this to Redford,
the actor asked Nichols what he meant. "Well, let's put it this way,"
said Nichols, "Have you ever struck out with a girl?" "What do you
mean?" asked Redford. "That's precisely my point," said Nichols.
This movie marked the first time a director was paid a flat salary (not including points) of $1,000,000.00.
In the novel, Ben interrupted the wedding before Elaine said I do. However, Mike Nichols decided to have Ben arrive after Elaine had gotten married.
Dustin Hoffman was already set to play a role in Mel Brooks The Producers
(1967) when the opportunity to audition for "The Graduate" came up.
Deferentially, Hoffman asked Brooks' permission to audition for the part
in the other film. Through his wife, Anne Bancroft,
(already cast) Brooks was familiar with the story of "The Graduate". He
allowed Hoffman to audition, blithely confident he'd be found
unsuitable for role of Mrs. Robinson's lover.
Paul Simon wrote two songs for the film that director Mike Nichols
rejected: "Punky's Dilemma" and "A Hazy Shade of Winter". Both appear
on the Simon and Garfunkel "Bookends" album. The song "Mrs. Robinson"
was not written for the movie; it was the working title of a song Simon
was then writing (originally called "Mrs. Roosvelt", and about Eleanor Roosevelt) and Nichols decided to include it. Simon and Art Garfunkel
only sing the chorus but none of the verses of the later hit song.
Additionally, the chorus portion sung contains some lyrics not featured
in the more popular "final" version of the song.
The movie's line "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't
you?" was voted as the #63 movie quote by the American Film Institute
(out of 100), as the #5 of Premiere's "100 Greatest Movie Lines" (2007).
According to Dustin Hoffman at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Graduation 2003, his friend and former roommate Gene Hackman was cast as Mr. Robinson but was fired after a few weeks of work.
Mike Nichols initially wanted French actress Jeanne Moreau
to play Mrs. Robinson. The idea behind this was that in the French
culture, the "older" women tended to "train" the younger men in sexual
matters. The producers for the movie, Joseph E. Levine and Lawrence Turman, were completely opposed to the idea. Mike Nichols
was even more set on having Simon and Garfunkel do the integrated
soundtrack for the film. Nichols agreed to switch actresses for Mrs.
Robinson as long as he could still use Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.
Sources vary on precisely what the truth is about the possibility of Doris Day playing Mrs. Robinson. One rumor says the property was acquired with her in mind as Mrs. Robinson, and producer Lawrence Turman sent the novel to her manager/husband, Martin Melcher,
wanting to know their opinion of Day in the role, but Melcher was so
disgusted by the thought that he refused to even mention it to her. Doris Day
wrote in her 1975 memoir, which is probably more accurate, that she was
actually offered the role, but "I could not see myself rolling around
in the sheets with a young man half my age whom I'd seduced".
Patty Duke was offered the part of Elaine Robinson, but turned it down because she did not want to work at the time.
Other actresses considered for the part of Elaine were Natalie Wood (who turned it down) and Candice Bergen (who auditioned but did not get the part).
Mike Nichols realized
one reason why he had so much difficulty casting for Benjamin Braddock
when he read the Mad Magazine parody of his film. One of the jokes was
Benjamin asking his parents why he was Jewish and they were not, and
Nichols, who is Jewish himself, realized that his film had an
subconsciously autobiographical element about being an ethnic outsider
in a privileged WASPish society.
Within a year of the movie's release, plastic manufacturing companies
became enormously successful. Many people attribute this to Walter Brooke's
quote about "plastics". Brooke himself once told his nephew that he
would have invested in plastics, if he had known that the remark would
lead to such success.
Charles Grodin was asked to audition as Benjamin, but was never screen tested. Mike Nichols still offered him a part in Catch-22 (1970), which he was already scheduled to direct.
According to Susan Hayward's biographers, Mike Nichols
originally wanted her for the role of Mrs Robinson but she declined
because she wanted to avoid modifying her screen image. After Doris Day and Patricia Neal also turned it down Nichols eventually offered it to Anne Bancroft.
The red, Italian sports car which Benjamin drives throughout the movie
is a 1966 Alfa Romeo Spider 1600 also known as the Duetto.
Although Calder Willingham and Buck Henry
share screen writing credit, Buck Henry wrote the shooting version of
the screenplay without assistance, and Henry was not even aware of
Willingham's draft. Henry was the fourth screenwriter asked to try to
adapt Charles Webb's
novel, however, and Willingham filed a challenge with the Writer's Guild
for screen credit after the movie was completed. Because Webb's novel
consists of large passages of dialogue, and both writers lifted various
lines that appeared in each version, Willingham's challenge was
successful.
Some of the scenes of Benjamin in "Berkeley" were actually filmed at the
UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and USC (University of
Southern California).
The movie is full of womb imagery. From Benjamin's constant desire to
stay immersed in his parent's swimming pool, to the slow close-up shot
of the hips of Katherine's roommate as she brings the "Dear John" letter
to Benjamin, to returning to the actual womb of the elder and maternal
Mrs. Robinson.
At the AFI tribute to Mike Nichols, Dustin Hoffman
recounted that when he was first called to discuss auditioning for the
role of Benjamin, he told Nichols that he thought he was being made fun
of a little, considering how "wrong" he seemed for the character
described in the source novel. "'It [the book] says he's
five-foot-eleven or something, and he's a track star, and he's head of
the debating club, and he's from Boston or something, he's a WASP, and
I... it feels like this is a dirty trick, sir.' And in his inimitable
way, he says, 'You mean, you're Jewish'. And I said, 'Yes'. 'And that's
why you don't think you're right.' I said, 'Yes'. And he said, 'Well
maybe he's Jewish inside'. And I then got the part, after a screen
test."
Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft were the not quickly chosen for the leads of this film. Warren Beatty was originally going to be the lead, but after he did not get the role, Robert Redford was selected. Patricia Neal was considered, but reportedly declined because she was uneasy about playing a lead role so soon after having a stroke.
Geraldine Page, Deborah Kerr, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Shelley Winters, Eva Marie Saint and Ingrid Bergman were considered for the role of Mrs. Robinson.
The movie's line "Plastics." was voted as the #42 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
Steve McQueen, George Peppard, George Hamilton, Anthony Perkins, Keir Dullea, Lee Stanley, Brandon De Wilde and Michael Parks were considered for the role of Ben Braddock.
Ann-Margret, Jane Fonda, Tuesday Weld, Carroll Baker, Sue Lyon, Lee Remick, Suzanne Pleshette, Carol Lynley, Elizabeth Ashley, Yvette Mimieux, Pamela Tiffin and Hayley Mills were considered for the role of Elaine Robinson.
One version of the song Macarena by Los del Río samples one of Bancroft's lines ("I am not trying to seduce you!").
The model frogman in the aquarium is toppled over when Mrs. Robinson tosses in the keys.
On Inside the Actors Studio (1994), director Mike Nichols
claims that the final "sobering" emotion that Benjamin and Elaine go
through was due to the fact that he had just been shouting at the two of
them to laugh in the scene. The actors were so scared that after
laughing they stopped, scared. Nichols liked it so much, he kept it.
When Benjamin is shown banging on the church window with his arms raised
and extended, many reviewers felt he was portrayed as a Christ-like
image. In actuality, this was a compromise with the minister of the
church. The minister had threatened to throw everyone out when the scene
was rehearsed with Benjamin pounding his fists on the fragile window,
which had been a gift to the church.
Thanks! A lot of that is not what I'd call trivia; but rather theatrical history. Interesting insights into human behavior, frequently.
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