First Broadway, Next the World Mike Nichols (born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, but who's keeping track?) was a successful comedian, actor, and Broadway director before he morphed into a Hollywood forc...

Finding the right person to adapt The Graduate from Charles Webb's book wasn't easy. An early attempt with the playwright William Hanley fizzled out, and the next screenwriter, Calder Willingham, t...

A young Hollywood producer happened to like a book that no one else really did. When Charles Webb's The Graduate came out, it got lukewarm and mixed reviews. Fortunately for the history of cinema,...

Cinematographer Robert Surtees (who had previously worked on classics like Ben Hur) was familiar with Nichols' style from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and was impressed by his far-out camera dir...

The Sounds of Silence The score is one of the most memorable parts of the movie: Simon and Garfunkel's soundtrack echoes Benjamin's own alienation and worried melancholy with songs like "The Sound...

Since The Graduate is a comedy-drama about a crazy affair and its unexpected consequences, it's managed to become popular without garnering the kind of extreme fans that Star Wars and Star Trek hav...