Trailer
Plot summary
Benjamin Braddock finishes his bachelor's degree and returns to his parents' house in Pasadena, where the people around him ask about his plans or tell him what he should do. At his graduation party, Mrs. Robinson, whose husband is a law partner of his father, asks him for a ride home. Once there she says she is an alcoholic and makes advances toward him. He resists, then invites her to meet him at the Taft Hotel, where he signs the register as Mr. Gladstone. He spends the summer floating in his parents' pool by day and seeing Mrs. Robinson at night. His parents and Mr. Robinson push him to take out the Robinsons' daughter, Elaine, and he agrees without much enthusiasm.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- George Bruggemanas Church Member (uncredited)
- Garrett Cassellas Hotel Guest (uncredited)
- Buddy Douglasas Hotel Lobby Bellhop (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Graduate (1967)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Dustin Hoffman had been cast as Liebkind in the Mel Brooks film The Producers, but before filming began he begged Brooks to let him go and audition for The Graduate instead.
- Hoffman was paid $20,000 for his role and netted $4,000 after taxes and temporary accommodation; once that money was gone he filed for New York State unemployment benefits, receiving $55 per week while living in a two-room apartment in the West Village.
- Before Hoffman was cast, Robert Redford and Charles Grodin were top choices: Redford tested for Benjamin with Candice Bergen as Elaine, but Nichols thought he lacked the underdog quality the part needed, and Grodin turned it down over the low $500 a week offered by producer Lawrence Turman.
- Nichols cast Gene Hackman as Mr. Robinson, but he was fired after a few days of rehearsals and replaced by Murray Hamilton; many years later Hackman said that being fired from the film still hurt him.
- Nichols begged Simon for more songs and Simon played a few notes of one he was 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 him: "It's now about Mrs. Robinson, not Mrs. Roosevelt."
- Doris Day turned down an offer because the nudity required by the role offended her, and Shelley Winters, Ingrid Bergman, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth and Lana Turner were also considered for Mrs. Robinson.
- Nichols' first choice for Mrs. Robinson was the French actress Jeanne Moreau, motivated by the cliche that in French culture "older" women tended to "train" the younger men in sexual matters.
- Despite playing mother and daughter, Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross were only eight years apart in age, and Bancroft and Hoffman differed by less than six years.
