Trivia / The Graduate

• Award Category Fraud: A few people have claimed that Anne Bancroft should've been nominated in supporting rather than lead, as Dustin Hoffman is clearly the much larger role, and Bancroft takes more of a backseat to both him and Katharine Ross in the second half.
• Ability over Appearance:
  • Dustin Hoffman himself thought he was miscast as Benjamin, being too old and not good looking enough to match the WASP Pretty Boy of the book. In fact, Mel Brooks (husband of Anne Bancroft) let Dustin out of his contract for The Producers to audition - convinced he'd never get the part. It ended up being his Star-Making Role and is still considered one of the finest performances of his career. Word of God is that Dustin was chosen because he was far away enough from his early twenties to have an attitude about that period of his life and "get rid of that self-pity".
  • To a lesser extent, Anne Bancroft was only 35 playing the Mrs. Robinson. Few argue with her iconic performance.
• Actor-Inspired Element: Katharine Ross wore all of her own clothing in the campus scenes, because Mike Nichols felt whatever she came to the shoots in was perfect for the character of Elaine.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: At least when the caption is attributed to the scene where the page image comes from (and it often is). The "trying to seduce me" line actually comes earlier, when both are fully dressed in party clothes, at the Robinson residence at the beginning of the film. The page image is of a moment when the affair is already ongoing, and each party has offended the other sufficiently that they begin to get dressed. Both involve a well-placed leg, of course. Also, the question is "You're trying to seduce me, aren't you?", not as it's sometimes misquoted, "Are you trying to seduce me?"
• Billing Displacement: Anne Bancroft is given top billing over Dustin Hoffman, even though he plays the always present main character. This is likely due to Hoffman being an unknown while Bancroft was already a famous star.
• California Doubling: An intra-California example. The wedding is supposed to be taking place in Santa Barbara, but the scene was actually shot a two-hour drive away at a Methodist church in La Verne, on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Richard Dreyfuss was a contender for the role of Benjamin. He made one of his earliest film appearances in the bit role of Richie, one of Ben's fellow roomers at Berkeley.
  I knew I was too young, but I tried out for the lead… and went through the three levels of casting. I learned [director Mike Nichols] was going to New York to meet an actor named Dustin Hoffman. I could feel the wind of inevitability go right up the back of my neck. But everyone who auditioned for the role that went to Dustin, Mike gave a part to.
• Darkhorse Casting: Dustin Hoffman was a complete unknown, having acted mainly in theatre and had one small film credit to his name.
• Dawson Casting: Dustin Hoffman was 29 at the time the movie was made, playing a college graduate. Katherine Ross was also twenty-seven.
• The Other Marty: Hoffman's close friend and sometime roommate Gene Hackman was initially cast as Mr. Robinson, but was fired after a few weeks of work. It was decided that he was too young for the part (although he was actually a year older than Anne Bancroft), but he left the film amiably and was replaced with Murray Hamilton.
• Named by the Adaptation: The stage play gives us "Judith" for Mrs. Robinson, "Howard" for Mr. Robinson, and "Olive" for Mrs. Braddock.
• Permanent Placeholder: The already existing Simon & Garfunkel songs like "The Sound of Silence" were originally used by Nichols and editor Sam O'Steen as a pacing device for the editing. But then Nichols decided substituting original music wouldn't be as effective and decided to include them on the finished film's soundtrack, an unusual move at the time.
• Real Song Theme Tune: Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence". Also "Scarborough Fair" and "April Come She Will".
• Star-Making Role: For Dustin Hoffman.
• Throw It In!:
  • Ben grabbing Mrs. Robinson's breast during their first liason was completely unscripted, and the reason Ben walked to the back of the room and started banging his head against the wall after she didn't react (see Wall Bang below) was because Dustin Hoffman couldn't stop laughing.
  • Ben stretching out his arms while banging on the window during the wedding, often seen as a Crucified Hero Shot, was actually just because Dustin was worried about breaking the window, especially since the crew was nearly thrown out by the minister during earlier shoots where he was more agressively pounding on what was apparently rare and expensive glass.
  • The film's ambiguous ending, where Ben and Elaine exchange quick loving glances only for them to turn away from each other, blankly staring into an uncertain future was because the director of the scene forgot to yell "cut".
• Underage Casting: Anne Bancroft was only 35 when she portrayed Mrs. Robinson, only 8 years older than her onscreen daughter.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Warren Beatty, Albert Finney, Harrison Ford, Charles Grodin, George Hamilton, Steve McQueen (actor), Jack Nicholson, Anthony Perkins, Robert Redford, Burt Ward (yes, the Boy Wonder himself; he was committed to the series, and 20th Century Fox wouldn't lend him) and Gene Wilder were all considered for the role of Benjamin. Redford, whom Nichols had directed on Broadway in his Star-Making Role in Barefoot in the Park, was strongly considered, but Nichols ultimately decided he was just too damn handsome to play someone who got rejected by a girl.
  • Pretty funny to think of Warren Beatty and Doris Day trying to play the virginal Ben and the vampy Mrs. Robinson, respectively.
  • Joan Crawford inquired as to play Mrs. Robinson. Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn and Angela Lansbury were also interested.
  • Ava Gardner sought the role of Mrs. Robinson, and reportedly called Mike Nichols saying,"I want to see you! I want to talk about this Graduate thing!" Nichols did not seriously consider her for the role (he wanted a younger woman; Bancroft was 35, Gardner was 45), but did end up visiting her hotel. He later recounted that "she sat at a little French desk with a telephone, she went through every movie star cliché. She said, 'All right, let's talk about your movie. First of all, I strip for nobody.'"
  • Anne Baxter, Ingrid Bergman, Angie Dickinson, Judy Garland, Susan Hayward, Rita Hayworth, Jennifer Jones, Deborah Kerr, Sophia Loren, Eva Marie Saint, Patricia Neal, Rosalind Russell, Lana Turner and Shelley Winters were all considered for Mrs. Robinson. As mentioned above, Doris Day was also considered as an experiment in Playing Against Type (her film image was "the perennial virgin"), but she too turned it down, saying she couldn't see herself in the role.
  • Candice Bergen, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway,^note She turned it down in favor of Bonnie and Clyde (as did Warren Beatty Patty Duke, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Shirley MacLaine, Hayley Mills, Lee Remick and Natalie Wood were considered for Elaine, while Joan Collins and Raquel Welch tested for it.
  • Yul Brynner, Kirk Douglas, Jack Lemmon, Karl Malden, Robert Mitchum, Christopher Plummer and Ronald Reagan were all considered for Mr. Braddock before William Daniels was cast.
  • Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, Jack Palance, Gregory Peck, George Peppard and Frank Sinatra were considered for Mr. Robinson, and Gene Hackman actually started filming the role before Murray Hamilton was cast.
  • Teenage folk singer-songwriter Janis Ian, at the time known for her controversial hit single "Society's Child," was approached to write the music score for the film. She declined, the job went to Simon & Garfunkel, and the rest is history.
    • Speaking of which, Mike Nichols asked Paul Simon to write a whole batch of new songs for he and Garfunkel to record expressly for the film. Only one of the new songs ("Mrs. Robinson") was deemed good enough to use, so preexisting S&G recordings were used to fill out the soundtrack instead. However, two of the other intended songs ("Punky's Dilemma" and "Overs") would be included on the duo's classic Bookends album the following year.
  • William Goldman was asked to write the script, but declined as he didn't get the book.
• Word of God: Benjamin and Elaine moved 3000 miles away and had two kids.

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