“Plastics,” as it turns out, wasn’t such a bad piece of advice after all. The computers that run our lives are made of plastic. IPods are made of plastic. Plastic, when put before the word “surgery,” is more popular than ever. But in Mike Nichols (Charlie Wilson’s War) 1967 classic, The Graduate, plastic was meant to signify phoniness and how college graduate Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) was matriculating to adulthood, with its shiny, phony concerns. It was a piece of advice given to Ben by a family friend during a celebration of his graduation. But the real lesson Ben learns comes later in the evening, when Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), daughter of Elaine (Katharine Ross), the hottest girl in town, needs a ride home. When he gives it to her, he learns how complicated it is to be an adult.

The Graduate was a visually groundbreaking film for the time, but much of that is lost. The idea of casting New York theater actor, and marginally handsome, Dustin Hoffman as Ben, flew in the face of traditional Hollywood casting wisdom. Now the nerds have taken over Hollywood. Also, comedies shot in dark interiors were also a risk. Now, “dark comedy” is an actual genre. But when you strip away the stylistic chance-taking, you still have a heck of a movie. Youth isn’t as disaffected as it was in the ‘60s, but every youngster still exits college wondering what his or her life is going to be like. What kind of job they’re going to get and who they’re going to marry. Mike Nichols, when asked what he thinks Ben and presumed-wife Elaine would be doing today, he famously replied “they’d be like their parents.” It’s the fate of us all. It’s just that Ben’s parents are not as vibrantly troubled as Elaine’s parents. Mrs. Robinson seems to be the only person in the movie who is having any fun and she has to drag Benjamin along for the ride. Some of Nichols’ shot composition during the scene in the hotel lobby where he first books a room for their initial coupling is a master class. Benjamin is suffocated, hemmed-in, trapped and the only way out is through Mrs. Robinson.

So in that way, the movie is universal. But there’s magical realism in Nichols’ telling … especially the end. Elaine is not a very well-drawn character, but I always wondered whether Ben’s disruption of Elaine’s wedding would have ended that way (I’m purposely trying to be vague, for those who haven’t seen it). In fact, there is every reason to believe that Ben is still attempting to retain his childhood, even though he should be starting his adult life. He constantly rebuffs his father’s entreaties to select a graduate school and his summer long affair with Mrs. Robinson (we never learn her first name) smacks of avoiding adulthood and forestalling personal advancement. Sound familiar? It sure does to me and I’m way older than 21-year old Ben Braddock.

The film was nominated for a boatload of Oscars, including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, and Best Picture. Mike Nichols won the award for Best Director. Everyone nominated went on to a great career. For it’s time, The Graduate is a classic. Forty years down the road, it’s still a terrific film. Maybe not for the same reasons, but that doesn’t diminish the accomplishment.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 2:35:1 is presented in anamorphic video, so there’s more information at the edges of the frame, which is fantastic. Of the three iterations of The Graduate on DVD, this is the best looking by far. Sharpness is above average, although there are some individual shots that are less sharp, making me wonder if the problem lies with the camera original. For instance, the first shot of the film is Dustin Hoffman going down an airport people mover. It’s soft, but since things sharpen up soon after, I’m sure it’s not the transfer house’s fault. Small object detail and finely grained textures are above average for the time. Nichols goes deep focus for many interior shots and you can see a moderate amount of objects and details within objects. The color palette is subdued, with lots of browns. Colors look accurate and smooth, with no iridescence (unlike MGM’s first DVD release of the film, which was blistering) or smearing. Print quality is excellent, especially for a film of this vintage. I counted two specks. Big deal. I also saw zero edge halos and no grain or compression errors. Blacks are excellent, but in certain interiors I did wonder if the blacks were darker than necessary. I thought against it, since contrast is excellent, with bright whites coexisting nicely with dark blacks. All in all, this is a terrific transfer; the film has never looked better.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

There are two high-end audio tracks: Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. I don’t think both are necessary but, for whatever reason, MGM did. Both sound fairly identical. As usually happens when Dolby goes up against DTS, the DTS shows a bit more bass and maybe spreads out a touch more, but really it’s a wash. This is mainly a front-speaker movie. The center speaker does most of the work and there are lines of dialogue that come from the sides. But sometimes the track feels like its showing off, especially since the original track is mono. Elsewhere, dialogue sounds like it’s struggling to not be so thin and there are moments of hollowness. Surrounds are engaged minimally and there are almost no effects to test the track. Aural coolness only pops up in the songs and in pool water splashing. Dynamic range is minimal. This is not an ambitious track. As mentioned, the mono track, hiss-free and more appropriate for the material, will be preferable to some audiophiles.

There’s also a French mono track, English Closed Captions, and English, Spanish, and French subtitles.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

There are two audio commentaries on the first disc of this two-disc set. The first is by Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross. You can tell they're not hip on the art of audio commentaries, filling time, spinning tales. But it's still nice for them to participate, even if Hoffman does most of the talking. They talk a lot about working with Nichols and rehearsals. Hoffman recounts that on one day he was tired and not doing his best. Nichols reminded the future Oscar winner that he's gonna see the movie on the screen one day and regret he didn't perform better. And it'll haunt him the rest of his life. Boy, that got Hoffman back into the game! It's an okay commentary, notable for the historic reunion of Hoffman and Ross. 

The second is by director Mike Nichols and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh. The Oscar winning director of Traffic keeps the thing moving by asking Nichols questions, including how the owner of the church in the climax was afraid that Hoffman was going to break the window he was pounding on. In fact, the owner of the church kind of regretted letting the production shoot there. This is more of a conversation, which is why it works. Subject matter is the same as the other extras: script, rehearsals, shooting, etc. But there are some really good insights into shooting and lighting philosophy. 

The Students of The Graduate featurette is an appreciation of the film and includes sound bites from producer Lawrence Turman, screenwriter Buck Henry, editor’s wife Bobbie O’Steen, filmmakers Harold Ramis, Marc Forster (The Kite Runner), Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton (Little Miss Sunshine), and David O. Russell (Three Kings), USC film professor Bruce Block, Newsweek film critic David Ansen, Entertainment Weekly film critic Owen Gleiberman, UCLA film professor Vivian Sobchack, film music historian Jon Burlingame, LA Times critic Ann Powers, and former rocker, now IFC host Henry Rollins. They talk a lot about what Nichols, a former stage director, brought to the film medium. Nichols rarely moved the camera, so the actors could create the rhythm of the piece themselves. Robert Redford was originally envisioned for the part and he "made everybody else look uninteresting" says Henry. Hoffman wasn't tall and blonde, which was a radical decision for the time. It's 25- minutes and basically a puff piece, but there's good information there.

The Seduction is a nine-minute featurette that delves into the characters and how college gives you information, but not knowledge, which was the crux of Benjamin's issue as he exits college for the real world. Sound bites come from Ansen, Ramis, Russell, Block, Faris and Dayton, Forster, Rollins, and relationship therapist Dr. Deborah Cooper. It's okay for those who need to be spoon fed what the movie means.

Next, One on One with Dustin Hoffman is a 15-year old interview with the Oscar winner, conducted on the 25th anniversary of The Graduate. It's a laid back interview and feels as if it was meant to be chopped up for various short form EPK-type pieces of the time. But I'm a huge Hoffman fan, so I enjoy watching him speak. He talks almost exclusively about the screen test. Fun information includes how he had to memorize ten pages for the screen test, which was very hard for him. It was his first time in a movie studio, he felt totally out of place, and it didn't help that he had to read with the beautiful Katharine Ross; Hoffman thought he was only there as a cypher so Nichols could hit on Ross. Anyway, it's not much, but I liked it.

Some of the above interview material can be seen in the featurette The Graduate at 25. It's a holdover from the previous DVD, a nice little recap of the film and how it got made. Some of this stuff will seem familiar from watching the other extras. Writer Buck Henry and all the other principles are interviewed. Henry says they saw the casting as being very Southern California, like Robert Redford and Candice Bergen (as the two young leads) and Ronald Reagan and Doris Day (as the parents). Anyway, it goes on like that for about 23 minutes. Footage is 15 years old, so it pre-dated digital cleanliness, but it still looks fine. 

Finally on disc one there are the film's original theatrical trailer and the Academy Awards trailer. 

The second disc in this set is an audio CD that contains four of the amazing Simon and Garfunkel songs featured in the movie: “The Sound of Silence,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “Scarborough Fair/Canticle,” and “April Come She Will.”

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?

There are no DVD-ROM features on this DVD.