Benjamin Braddock

But there's even other clear like he's taken from Mike Nichols, The Graduate, the scene where Herman goes into the pool.

So reminiscent of the similar scene with Ben Braddock in The Graduate.

Yeah.

You also have the shot where the camera dollies as Rosemary's approaching Herman.

Mitzi Gaynor is a technically precise performer.

she'd have been good the film might have been better to shoot it would have been a lesser film as a technically for more sendykindness foam the casting near miss with the most documented paper trail that never gets enough attention is the graduate charles grodin auditioned robert redford auditioned warren beatty was discussed extensively and director mike nichols has given very specific interviews about why he kept passing on redford on a performer who was by all external measures exactly what you'd want for benjamin braddock how nichols said in an interview with mike sachs that's been quoted fairly widely Could Redford be rejected by a woman? The question sounds glib, but it contains the whole casting logic.

Benjamin Braddock's particular quality, the paralysis, the sense of a man for whom the future feels both overwhelming and meaningless, who drifts into an affair not out of confidence, but out of absence of resistance, requires an actor who projects uncertainty, who you can believe is adrift.

redford projects competence he can't help it there's something in the structure of his face and the way he occupies space that reads as a man who knows what he's doing even when the character doesn't you watch redford and you feel like things are going to be okay Benjamin Braddock is a character who exists to make you feel like things might not be okay for a generation.

Dustin Hoffman, who was a theater actor, who had almost no film experience, who Nichols went to see in an off-Broadway production and immediately wanted, brings to Benjamin a quality that I'd describe as interior crowding.

There's too much happening behind his eyes, and none of it is converting into action.

He is extremely busy doing nothing, which is the precise condition of Benjamin Braddock.

Hoffman has said he didn't think he was right for the role.

[laughs]

... to play Benjamin Braddock in a stage adaptation of The Graduate with Kathleen Turner as my Mrs. Robinson.

Wow.

Yeah.

There's no dialogue, just quiet chatter, and everything is seen from the point of view of Little Death, the monster character walking the camp, breathing through a contraption resting on his head.

Think Ben Braddock on the walk to his family's swimming pool in The Graduate.

Then, out of nowhere, Little Death appears and murders a couple walking their dog on a nightly stroll.

Then a scream and, oh yeah, the umbrella of blood.

It's a great movie, obviously.

And I didn't want my sons to see it too early because you have to be a certain age to really get Benjamin Braddock and Company.

It's a story about a young man who is about to enter the real world.

He's a graduate.