The Graduate (1967)

Mrs. Robinson, if you don’t mind my saying so, this conversation is getting a little strange.

— Benjamin Braddock

I always wanted to see the #161 Movie of All-Time on IMDb, The Graduate for a long time now. I have never had the chance until now. It is one of those movies that everyone have already seen many times or at least known some of the famous lines from it. The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards and it only won for Nichols as Best Director. Strange.

Based on the novel by Charles Webb, the movie tells the story of Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) who has come back to the west coast after graduating from college. Mr. and Mrs. Braddock (William Daniels and Elizabeth Wilson) throw him a welcome home party of the home. Ben is uncomfortable having all the attention on him. He isolates himself in his room.

The wife of his dad’s business partner, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) bursts into his room thinking that it was the bathroom. Instead, she asks Ben to drive her home, because her husband (Murray Hamilton) took the car out. After Ben drops her off, she invites him in for a drink and proceeds to slowly seduce him.

Mr. Robinson comes back home to find them acting like nothing happened. Mr. Robinson senses Ben’s uneasiness and decides to give him advice about sowing his wild oats. He doesn’t know that his wife has offered herself to Benjamin any time he wants for a quick romp.

After Ben turns 21, he decides to proceed with the affair at a local hotel where he decides to reserve the room under the name, Mr. Gladstone. Their affair continues but it seems that Ben wants more than a physical relationship, but Mrs. Robinson doesn’t want to chit-chat.

Things becomes complicated when the Robinson’s daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross) comes to town and Ben’s parents are forcing him to go on a date with her.

I can see why Nichols won the Oscar for Best Director. The way that the movie is shot is a sight to behold. You have the camera placed in the closet, a camera rolling into darkness, people facing away from the camera delivering their dialogue. I really enjoyed the relationship with Ben and Mrs. Robinson. It’s not tawdry as I thought. It was realistic. Anne Bancroft was luminous on screen. I love the lilt in her voice.

There some things I didn’t enjoy about this movie. I was not thrilled about the relationship between Ben and Elaine. It didn’t seem organic to me. Ben also becomes stalkerish near the end that really disturbed me.

Judgment: A story about an affair that is not dated.

Rating: 8/10

The Dirty Dozen (1967)

You know what to do, feed the French and shoot the Germans!

— Major John Reisman

The Dirty Dozen is a subversive take on WWII soldiers and combat. Quentin Tarantino possibly borrowed some elements of this movie for his latest effort, Inglourious Basterds, which is set to be released in August. Killing a whole bunch of Nazis is fine. If the story drags along at a snail’s pace, you don’t care about a bunch of Nazi annihilation.

Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin), a hotshot officer is assigned to head a secret operation to wipe out the upper echelon of Third Reich in one fail swoop. He has to train a dozen of criminals for a limited amount of time to be able to carry out the mission.

The premise of the story was great. It’s the execution that falls short. Some of the characters were so wacky and off-kilter that you cannot root for them in the final battle.

This movie was two and half hours long. There were instances of deja vu that the same scene played repeatedly. It felt like a chore to watch this movie. It needed some serious edits. After a while, you don’t care about the story.

Judgment: Don’t bother watching this unless you want to see criminals killing Nazis. Fast forward to the end.

Rating: **1/2