SCENES FROM ‘THE GRADUATE’
Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson. 50 years on, the cast and crew reveal backstage tales
BENJAMIN Braddock needn’t have worried about his future: Fifty years on, Dustin Hoffman’s nebbishy Ben is forever 21, thanks to “The Graduate.”
Mike Nichols’ 1967 film not only made Hoffman a star — it redefined the look of Hollywood’s leading men. And its soundtrack made “The Sound of Silence” the anthem of an alienated generation.
“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me”: Dustin Hoffman plays the wary Benjamin in Mike Nichols’ classic.
Now “The Graduate” is back on the big screen: Adigitally restored version of the film the Library of Congress lauded for its “cultural significance” plays April 23 and 26 in more than 700 theaters (locations at FathomEvents. com).
But “The Graduate” wasn’t an easy sell.
“Every studio turned it down,” says producer Lawrence Turman, who fell in love with Charles Webb’s 1963 novella and optioned the rights for $1,000. “They read the book and hated it, and no one thought it was funny.”
But Turman, now 90 and teaching at USC, persisted: “I went to Joseph E. Levine, a schlockmeister who bought ‘Hercules’ from Italy, put his name on it and distributed it. Joe said, ‘Here’s the money’ —$3 million — and I negotiated a deal that gave me and Mike Nichols total control.”
Here’s what else he and cast members Katharine Ross, William Daniels and others told The Post about the film that made “Plastics!” a punch line — and Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson the übercougar.
“So old Elaine Robinson got started in a Ford!”
“[Nichols and I] tested five guys and five girls,” Turman says. And while Robert Redford and Candice Bergen were on the shortlist, Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross became Ben and Elaine, the object of Ben’s affection.
Ross, 77, says her co-star hardly swept her off her feet.
“He’d just flown in from New York, and all he wanted to do was get back there,” she says. “Here we are in La La Land, we’re all tan, and here he is, pale and all in black. I thought, ‘Hmm. This is the guy?’ ”
Not only that, she says, but just before the camera rolled on their first screen test, he pinched her behind. “I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again!’ And after that,” she says, laughing, “he kept mimicking me.”
Says Turman: “Truth be told, wedidn’t jump upanddown and say, ‘Wow, Dustin! That’s our guy!’ After watching six [screen] tests in a row, I turned to Mike and said, “‘I think I’d be OKwithDustin and Katharine.’ Mike didn’t say a word, walked to the door, and said, ‘Yeah, metoo.’” “Ben, this whole idea sounds pretty half-baked.”
Years before he was the snippy surgeon of TV’s “St. Elsewhere,” Daniels played Mr. Braddock, Ben’s father. As he recalls now and in his memoir, “There I Go Again,” he’d been offered the part of the desk clerk —“Are you here for an affair, sir?” — but turned it down because the part was “too small.” (Screenwriter Buck Henry played it instead.) Right away, says Daniels, now 90, Nichols called and tried to change his mind (“But it’s got two laughs!”), then offered him the role of Ben’s father.
Daniels was just 10 years older than Hoffman, but Buck Henry says it didn’t matter: “Nobody was playing their age. Anne [35 at the time of filming] was younger than her character, Dustin [29] was older than his.”
Daniels made more money than Hoffman did, because he had more credits. Before “The Graduate,” Turman says, “Dustin had a oneminute scene in ‘The Tiger Makes Out.’ I paid him $750 a week, and we probably shot for nine weeks. How much money do you think Dustin made for his next movie? He should have paid us!”
Adancer named Lainie Miller snagged the small but indelible role of a stripper whose dance brings Elaine to tears — and makes Ben realize it’s not Mrs. Robinson he wants, but Elaine.
“There was no audition,” says Miller, then 26. She says Nichols had spotted her in a “silly little movie” in which she played a voodoo witch, and had his production coordinator find her. Turns out, Miller and the coordinator lived next door to each other. “I threw out a number, $1,000 a day, and [Nichols] said fine,” Miller recalls. “We shot for two days. I went to the store, bought some fishing lure and tassels, and taught myself to twirl them.
“It was a little more intricate to shoot because they wanted me to lean over and have those tassels touch Katharine on the head ... Dustin was mesmerized!” “Hello darkness, myold friend ...”
Daniels says he wasn’t sure what “The Graduate” was about — until he heard “The Sound of Silence.”
“Mike said, ‘I’m gonna play a recording I got here of these two kids — one is really tall, and the other is really short,’” Daniels recalls of his introduction to Simon & Garfunkel. “At that point, I assumed that Anne Bancroft was the star. But when they played that, I suddenly realized that this was about the kid . . . and that it was a picture for the young people.” “Elaine!” “Ben!”
In the end, Ben storms the church where Elaine’s just wed someone else. As their furious parents look on, the two run out and get onto a bus. Slowly, their faces, flushed with exhilaration, go slack. Roll credits.
“People always ask about the ending,” Ross says. “After running out of the church, we got onto the bus and Mike just kept the camera running. Do I know what happened? No. Maybe [Elaine] got off at the next bus stop!”
Turman says that even he and Nichols disagreed about what that last scene meant.
“Mike said, ‘It’s really a tragedy. Where will they be in one or five years?’ But many take it as a triumph ...
“What does it matter?” he concludes. “It’s enigmatic. It’s brilliant!”