So here's to you...

The Graduate was released in 1967 and won an Oscar for its director, Mike Nichols. Beverly Gray was at the same stage of her life as the young hero of the movie, Benjamin Braddock – just leaving college and part of a generation that was seeking something different to the plans their parents had made for them. This book is partly about the making of the film, partly about the influence it has had on later culture, but mostly about the impact it had on Gray herself and her peers. Because of the type of book it is, it's of course full of spoilers for the movie, and so will be this review.

I'm maybe a decade younger than Gray and The Graduate didn't have the same impact on me when I first saw it, on TV probably in the late 70s (and quite probably with some bits cut, I'd imagine – British TV was like that back then). I liked it well enough and loved the Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack, but it didn't speak to me about my life. I thought of it as an enjoyable rom-com – a bit racy, perhaps, but by the late '70s, frankly, what wasn't? So I was intrigued to see if Gray would deepen my appreciation for it.

Gray starts by discussing her own reaction to the film on its release, and how those reactions have changed somewhat as she has swapped the optimism of youth for the realism (or cynicism or pessimism, depending on how you look at it) of experience. The ending in particular – seen at the time as a hopeful rejection of their parents' values – seems more ambiguous looking back. OK, so they'd run off – now what?

She then goes back in time a little to discuss the origin of the film and its production, She introduces us to the writer of the original book, Charles Webb, and tells us about his own life on which he drew somewhat for the plot (though his affair with his parents' friend was purely wishful thinking). The book didn't take off at first – reviews I've read of it suggest it's not terribly well written. Gray says it was compared in style to The Catcher in the Rye and clearly was in the same vein of trying to capture that generational shift that happened in America during the '60s. Although the film came out in '67 at the height of Vietnam, the book places it closer to '62, which is why Benjamin is not living in fear of being drafted. Despite its relative lack of success, it attracted the attention of an aspiring movie producer, Larry Turman, who managed to get Mike Nichols interested, and also persuaded backer Joe E Levine to put up the money.

Gray then takes us through the making of the film, though more from the perspective of the people than the technical side of it. We learn how the young Dustin Hoffman got the role, how Nichols got the performances out of his stars, whose leg it actually is in the rolling up the stocking scene. (Admit it – you're intrigued now, aren't you? Send me chocolate and I might tell you...)

Then she takes us through the film scene by scene, pointing out some of the techniques and effects Nichols used. I found this was the perfect stage to re-watch the movie. This is an interesting section, done well, getting a nice balance between detail and overall impression. It's done from the perspective of the viewer rather than the film-makers, so she points out what has been done rather than how it was done. For example, she points out the use of mirrors, glass and reflections throughout the film, or tiny details like Ben being anti-smoking before his rebellion and then taking up smoking at round about the same time as he... ahem... takes up with Mrs Robinson. These are all the things I never notice, so I found this added a lot to my appreciation of how Nichols achieved his story-telling effects.

The final section tells us how the film impacted on the later careers of its stars, not always positively, and how it has been referenced in popular culture in the decades since its release. Some of this made my eyes glaze over a bit, partly because a lot of the references related to specifically American things, like ads, and partly because, not being an avid movie watcher, I hadn't seen a lot of the films she mentioned. However it would work better for American cinema enthusiasts, I'm sure.

Gray writes lightly and conversationally, with a good deal of fairly waspish humour sprinkled over the pages, and the book is enjoyable to read. It doesn't have the depth of a deeply researched production critique, but that's not its aim. The personal aspect of how it touched Gray and her generation adds interest, though occasionally she has a tendency to dismiss any interpretation of it that differs from her own. And of course it relates directly only to a small subset of that generation – well off, college educated, white – something Gray doesn't really acknowledge, at least not explicitly.

I enjoyed the read and the re-watch it inspired, and I found, like Gray, that my advancing years had made that ending look a lot deeper than my young self had spotted. In fact, the final scene of Benjamin and Elaine on the bus feels much less victorious to me now. Gray explains how Nichols managed to catch the ambiguous expressions on the actors' faces, almost by accident, and yet it gives the film a depth and poignancy it might not otherwise have had. If like me you haven't watched it in years, treat yourself to a movie night – it has more than stood the test of time. And if you're a fan of the film, then I happily recommend the book. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Algonquin Books.

Seduced By Mrs. Robinson is a bold examination of a film described as a touchstone of a generation. Many of us have seen the move so many times that we are intimately familiar with the various scenes from Benjamin donning his scuba gear in the backyard pool to driving Mrs. Robinson home to stalking Elaine at Berkeley and throwing a fit in the church balcony as she weds someone else. Gray takes this iconic film and discusses it on several levels. First, from the point of view of a Hollywood insider, discussing the casting and the producing and directing choices. Next, she looks at the film scene by scene, discussing the meaning of different scenes such as how Ben is claustrophobic when he is at his arenas' party and his awkward innocence when being seduced by Anne Bancroft. This is perhaps the real heart of the book. Then, Gray examines the cultural implications of the film, its impact on viewers, on critics, and on the culture. Finally, Gray discusses where all the directors and actors went from there. It's everything you always wanted to know about the movie and perhaps more. Well done.

I had a great time reading Seduced by Mrs. Robinson, a new book by Beverly Gray that traces the production of Director Mike Nichol’s classic film The Graduate (1967) on its 50th anniversary. Though I have heard stories about the making of this movie for years, in reading this lively history I’ve learned how much richer, entertaining and even touching the full story is.

Gray was a college student when the film was released and well understands the youthful angst that inspired her generation to embrace it. As a longtime part of the entertainment industry, including ten years working with Roger Corman, she brings industry savvy and connections to her story. In addition to looking at the film’s effect through her own lens, she explores that of other generations, mindsets and cultures.

The book is divided into three parts: a production history, plot rehash and analysis of the film’s effect on society. I most enjoyed the first part, which was full of behind-the-scenes tidbits, including the new-to-me fact that Eddra Gale, the quirky actress who played seaside temptress La Saraghina in Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963) made a
cameo appearance in a bus scene (not that bus scene), and that the filmmakers deemed her appearance significant enough to give her a credit. The blow-by-blow of the plot in the middle of the book felt unnecessary, though Gray does offer some interesting commentary. Objectively, the final section, with its expansive review of The Graduate phenomena and the impact it has had over the last five decades is the strongest and most thought provoking.

Gray writes in a lightly humorous tone, weaving a diverse array of facts and anecdotes into an airy, enjoyable read. It is for the most part an upbeat history, though there are some sober moments, including memories of Nichol's heartbreaking childhood and the way his feelings of being an outsider led him to choose the emphatically non-WASP Dustin Hoffman to play a privileged Californian loafer. For the most part it appears that The Graduate brought joy to most who were involved with the production in addition to being almost universally beloved among audiences.

My Thoughts:
I was seven years old when The Graduate came out; clearly I didn't see it for years after it was released. Still, I can't remember a time when I wasn't aware of it. Let's face it, everyone knows the Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack. I've read some interesting things about the making of the film before so I didn't even read the synopsis when I saw this book was available.

Here's some of what I learned:

Producer Larry Turman read Charles Webb's book after reading it because a book reviewer had compared it's protagonist to Catcher In The Rye's Holden Caulfield. He paid Webb $1,000 for the rights because two scenes particularly grabbed him: young Benjamin Braddock decked out in an entire SCUBA get up floating in the bottom of his parents' pool and the final shot of a disheveled Benjamin in the back of a bus with a young woman in a wedding gown.
Robert Redford really wanted the role of Benjamin Braddock and, physically, he was perfect for the role of a young California man, suntanned, blond, and tall. But Benjamin was a kid who was supposed to have had little luck with girls. When director Mike Nichols asked him if he had ever struck out with a girl, Redford said, in all earnestness, "What do you mean?" He was out.
Dustin Hoffman gave up a role in Mel Brooks' The Producers to play Benjamin and make love to Brooks' wife, Anne Bancroft, who played Mrs. Robinson. My background has always led me to find nothing odd at all about Hoffman being cast as Benjamin but, at the time, a Jewish leading man was certainly a daring choice.
"The casting of Dustin Hoffman as The Graduate's romantic leading man was a shock to Hollywood, which had spent decades trying to sidestep the Judaic roots of its founders. But in the wake of The Graduate, young Jewish males were suddenly everywhere, and often they were playing characters with backgrounds similar to their own."


Much of Mrs. Robinson's look and her home decor are the result of Nichol's reading Henry James' novella The Beast In The Jungle. Hence, Mrs. Bancroft appears almost exclusively in animal prints and her sunroom is backed by a jungle of tropical plants.
Mike Nichols used light and dark to differentiate between Mrs. Braddock and Mrs. Robinson and glass and water to illustrate the way Benjamin was trapped in his parents' world. In fact, a lot of the things Nichols did in this movie changed the way other filmmakers make movies.

That iconic shot at the end of the movie of Hoffman and Katherine Ross, where their faces turn from exuberance to "what the hell have we done?" That wasn't scripted or directed. Someone forget to say "cut" at what was to have been the end of the scene and that's what happened to Hoffman's and Ross' faces when they thought they were done with the shot. It was so perfect that Nichols left it in.
"In hindsight, it's easy to wonder: If Ben and Elaine have backed away from the future that's been preordained for them by a hypocritical older generations, where exactly are they headed? The fact that there's no good answer reminds us of what this film may actually portend. Perhaps that's what it's secretly about - the end of the happy ending."
No one expected this movie to the hit that it was. Young people stood in long lines, even in the cold, to see it because of the way it spoke to them about what would come to be known as the Generation Gap. But not everyone loved it; critics definitely had a wide range of opinions about what it was, what it wasn't, and what it could have been.
"The Graduate's prescience about matters of grave concern to the Baby Boom generation gave it a life of its own. If we young Americans were anxious about parental pressure, or about sex (and our lack thereof), or about marriage, or about the temptations posed by plastics, it was all visible for us on the movie screen. Today The Graduate continues to serve as a touchstone of that pivotal moment just before some of us began morphing into angry war protesters and spaced-out hippies."
"...those of my generation - didn't much want to face a life built on a bedrock of our elders' choices. In Benjamin we found a hero willing to turn his back on the kind of bright upper-middle-class future we weren't sure we wanted."
Gray has done a thorough job of researching and presents a lot of material. She gives the background of all of the players in the making of the movie and follows up with them afterward; she takes viewers through the entire movie to explain what makes each scene work; and she talks about the impact the movie had on the generation it was targeted at and the generations that followed.
As much as I learned, and as much as I did enjoy the book, I think I'm not the kind of person that wants to read a book that breaks down one movie quite as much as this one did. I must admit that I started skimming quite a lot in the last 100 pages. I think if you were a person for whom this movie was a touchstone (a.k.a. someone about ten or fifteen years older than I am) or someone who really enjoys learning about movies, you'd likely enjoy this book even more.
I definitely need to watch this movie again soon while all of this is still fresh in my brain and I can really appreciate the film making touches that made the story work so well.

"The Graduate lasts partly because it offers something for everyone, the restless youth; the disappointed elder; the cinephile who values the artistic innovation that's the legacy of director Mike Nichols. And this film has also burrowed its way into Hollywood's dream factory. The American movie industry, which worships box-office success, has learned from The Graduate brave new ideas about casting, about cinematic style, about the benefits of a familiar pop music score."

Another entry in the genre of giving an insider view of the process behind bringing a literary property to the screen, from author's initial conception to finished film. In this case, though, although The Graduate's backstory was somewhat quirky and had a few interesting twists, I didn't find the overall story terribly engaging.

The subtitle of author Beverly Gray's book, Seduced by Mrs. Robinson, is "How the Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation" - and indeed it did. The 1967 film was a huge hit with its sly, insightful, funny and yet serious take on sex, marriage, work and the gap between young people and their parents. "Plastics" became a code word for trading your heart and soul for making money. I received my e-copy of this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review, and I can recommend it to anyone who lived through the 60s--and for those who don't have a clue about that fast-changing era. But do see the movie before you read the book, so you'll understand the references. Well done, Ms. Gray.

Maybe I am too young to have truly appreciated this movie. I'm thinking YAs and adults would have found the movie, and the book, more interesting when it first came out. I was only 10 or 11, and when I finally caught the film, years later, it just looked dated and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what all the hoopla had been about! Still I remember it catapulting Dustin Hoffman to fame and I enjoyed his work. I'm guessing the book is going to appeal to those around my parents age group mostly. It was an interesting read, but not one I cared all that much for.

This is another inside view of the movie process--Gray, who was a fan of the movie when she saw it as a young adult in 1967, interviews the cast and crew and searches the archives for background on how it came together as a cultural touchpoint. In contrast to the momumental Dr. Dolittle (the studio's "Christmas gift to the world!"), The Graduate was adapted from a strange first novel (in which studios were interested because they couldn't get rights to The Catcher in the Rye), produced by a guy who had made his money buying, subtitling and promoting Italian gladiator movies with Steve Reeves, handed to novice film director Mike Nichols and cast with the anti-WASP, Dustin Hoffman. The camera work, though, was in the hands of a veteran Old Hollywood cinematographer who was excited to try new things, New York Stage actors relished playing establishment types, and Anne Bancroft captured the rage of a woman in a luxury girdle of 1950s social expectations.