The Graduate

Dustin Hoffman was one of those “overnight sensations”, an Actors Studio grad who struggled for 12 years before he got a break. For a spell he roomed with Gene Hackman, another unglamorous character actor who would become a star in the 1970s when he was well into middle age. Hoffman was 30 years old when Mike Nichols cast him as 20-year-old Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, a character where Ryan O’Neal might have been a no-brainer. Nichols saw something he wanted – “a pole-axed quality” – and moviegoers recognized it too. Here was someone who seemed to reflect the bewilderment of those times. Two years later his unrecognizable Rizzo Ratso in Midnight Cowboy confirmed he was an actor of range and ambition.

In The Graduate Benjamin comes home from college and is surprised to be seduced by the wife of his father’s business partner, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft). Life becomes even more complicated when he falls in love with Elaine (Katherine Ross), his lover’s daughter. The movie, which still feels fresh, imprinted itself on the popular imagination almost before it came out. But it’s only with time that you realize it’s really Mrs Robinson’s film.

A very nasty film, and a very, very funny one.

Tom Cox, Telegraph