One of the most beloved of all American films, The Graduate is 50 this year, and Studiocanal are celebrating this anniversary with a cinema release of a pristine new 4K restoration, including a 2 week run at the BFI Southbank from 23rd June as part of their Dustin Hoffman season. This will be followed by a brand new Special Edition DVD, Blu-Ray and EST release on 24th July.
A sensation on its original release in 1967, The Graduate was a one-of-a-kind cinematic portrait of America which captured the mood of disaffected youth seething beneath the laid-back exterior of 1960s California. It earned Mike Nichols a Best Director Oscar, introduced the music of Simon & Garfunkel to a wider audience and featured one of the most famous seductions in movie history and a truly iconic final scene. The Graduate also introduced the world to a young actor named Dustin Hoffman, perfectly cast as the jaw-droppingly naïve Benjamin.
Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) has just finished college and is already lost in a sea of confusion as he wonders what to do with his life. He returns to his parents’ luxurious Beverly Hills home, where he idles away the summer floating in the pool and brooding in silence. He is rescued from the boredom when he is seduced into a clandestine affair with a middle-aged married friend of his parents, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft). That liaison is soon complicated by Benjamin’s infatuation with her college-age daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross).
Visually imaginative and impeccably acted, with a witty, endlessly quotable script by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry (based on the novel by Charles Webb), with a supporting cast that includes William Daniels, Murray Hamilton, Walter Brooke and Elizabeth Wilson, with early bit-part appearances from Richard Dreyfuss, Mike Farrell, Elaine May and Ben Murphy. The Graduate had the kind of cultural impact that comes along only once in a generation.
This 50th Anniversary 4K restoration was created from the 35mm original camera negative by the Criterion Collection. The colour timing was done by referencing a previous colour grading that had been supervised by Grover Crisp at Sony Pictures and approved by director Mike Nichols. The 5.1 surround-sound remix, approved by the director, was created from the 35mm magnetic tracks and the original soundtrack recordings at Chace Audio.
Blu-ray and DVD Special Edition features:
- NEW Lawrence Turman interview
- American Masters: Mike Nichols documentary (53 mins)
- Mike Nichols / Steven Soderbergh audio commentary
- Dustin Hoffman / Katherine Ross audio commentary
- The Graduate at 25 (22 mins)
- Dustin Hoffman interview (23 mins)
- Screen tests (TBC)
- Students of The Graduate (26 mins)
- The Graduate: Looking Back (13 mins)
- Interview with Charles Webb (20 mins)
- Analysis of Seduction scene (9 mins)
- Analysis of the soundtrack (8 mins)
- Audio commentary with Professor Thomas Koebner
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