Lisa Marie Reviews An Oscar Winner: The Graduate (dir by Mike Nichols)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hello darkness, my old friend….

After watching 1967’s The Graduate, I defy anyone to listen to Simon and Garfunkel sing about the darkness without immediately picturing a young-looking Dustin Hoffman (he was 30 when the film was made but he was playing 22) standing on a moving airport walkway with a blank expression on his face.

If you don’t picture that, maybe you’ll picture Dustin Hoffman floating in a pool, wearing dark glasses and barely listening to his parents asking him about graduate school.

Or maybe you’ll remember him driving his car across the Golden Gate bridge. Or perhaps sitting at the bottom of his pool with a scuba mask on. Or maybe you’ll see him awkwardly standing at the desk in the lobby of a fancy hotel, trying to work up the courage to get a room. Or maybe you’ll just see him and Katharine Ross sitting at the back of that bus with a “what do we do now?” expression on their faces.

(Supposedly, that expression was not planned and was just a result of the shot running longer than expected.)

Ah, The Graduate. Based on a novel by Charles Webb, Buck Henry’s script remains one of the quotable in history. “Mrs. Robinson, you’re tying to seduce me …. aren’t you?” “Plastics.” “Elaine!” Myself, I have an odd feeling of affection for the line “Shall I get the cops? I’ll get the cops.” Perhaps that’s because the line is delivered by a young and uncredited Richard Dreyfuss, appearing in his second film and adding to the film’s general atmosphere of alienation.

Alienation is the main theme of The Graduate. As played by Hoffman, Benjamin Braddock feels alienated from everything. He was a track star. He was a top student in high school and college. Now, he’s just a college graduate with no idea what he wants to do with the rest of his life. One can argue, of course, that Braddock brings a lot of his alienation on himself. He can be a bit judgmental, even though he’s the one who is having an adulterous affair with Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) while also falling for Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross). His parents (William Daniels and Elizabeth Wilson) can be overbearing but it’s possible they have a point. Is he planning on spending the rest of his life floating in their swimming pool? Benjamin says that he just needs time to finally relax. After being pushed and pushed to be the best, he just wants time to do what he wants to do before his life becomes about plastics. When I first saw this movie, I was totally on Benjamin’s side. Now, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to understand where his parents were coming from. Still, it’s hard not to feel that Benjamin deserves at least a little bit of time to enjoy himself. That’s what Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) thinks, at least initially.

Mrs. Robinson is the most interesting character in the film, a force of chaos who lives to disrupt the staid world around her. She’s bored with her marriage and her conventional but empty lifestyle so she has an affair with Benjamin. Later, she grows bored with Benjamin and his desire to “just talk” for once and she moves on from him. Benjamin and Elaine are both likable and you find yourself wishing the best for them but Mrs. Robinson is the character who you really remember. Mrs. Robinson grew up without losing her sense of rebellion. One doubts that Benjamin and Elaine are going to do the same.

A portrait of American suburbia and 60s alienation, The Graduate would prove to be one of the most influential social satires ever made. A box office hit, it was nominated for seven Academy Awards. It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Mike Nichols), Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman), Best Actress (Anne Bancroft), Best Supporting Actress (Katharine Ross), Best Adapted Screenplay (Buck Henry and Calder Willingham), and Best Cinematography (Robert Surtees). The Simon and Garfunkel songs that set the film’s mood were, for the most part, not eligible. (Only Mrs. Robinson was written specifically for the film.) I would argue that the film deserved to be nominated for its editing as well. In the end, the film only won one Oscar, for Mike Nichols. But, regardless of what awards it won or lost, The Graduate‘s legacy lives on.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.24 “Dumb Luck/Tres Amigos/Hey, Jealous Lover”

Posted on January 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

The week, the crew is surprisingly incompetent.

Episode 3.24 “Dumb Luck/Tres Amigos/Hey, Jealous Lover”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on March 15th, 1980)

The members of the crew really disappointed me this week.

For instance, Gertrude (Jayne Meadows) and Milton Benson (James Gregory) are on the cruise. Gertrude is friendly and tries to talk to everyone. Whenever Milton sees any man talking to his wife, he flies into a jealous rage and threatens them. The crew reacts to this not by telling Milton to calm down but instead, by hiding whenever they see Milton or Gertrude on the boat. They’re terrified of Milton and yet, somehow, members of the crew keep ending up in the cabin with Gertrude.

Finally, at the end of the cruise, Milton shows up at the captain’s cabin and …. OH MY GOD, HE’S GOT A GUN! Goper, Doc, Isaac, and Stubing all end up diving to the floor. Milton explains that he acts jealous because he wants his wife to still feel as if she’s as desirable as the day they first met. He also says that he’s giving the gun to Stubing as a gift to thank him for the enjoyable cruise.

Later, as she prepares to leave the ship, Gertrude tells Gopher and Isaac that she knows that Milton can be jealous so she specifically dresses as drably as possible so that he won’t have to worry about any other men hitting on her. In the name of love, she tries to look ugly and he acts like a homicidal lunatic. Well, whatever works for them! They seemed to be happy together. Still, it must be said that the crew could have handled the whole situation better. Hiding in hallways and under desks is not what I expect from an experienced group of sailors.

Meanwhile, Julie’s friend, Carol Ketay (Shelley Hack), is on the cruise. Carol is a nuclear physicist and a member of a think tank. Julie is worried that men are intimidated by Carol being too smart. Julie also mentions that she’s never had that problem. Julie takes Carol aside and tell her that she needs to learn how to “talk dumb” if she wants to get a man. After borrowing a dress from Julie, Carol goes out of her way to sound like an idiot and she immediately catches the attention of Chris (Kevin Tighe). Chris and Carol have a great time on the ship but Carol is shocked to learn that Chris doesn’t want to date her on dry land because he thinks she’s too dumb. Carol reveals that she’s actually a nuclear physicist and they leave the boat arm-in-arm. Good for them! Julie really gave terrible advice but then again, I think she just wanted her friend to get laid. She wasn’t really that concerned with Carol getting a long-term relationship.

Finally, Vicki gets to do something this cruise. She befriends Keith (Ronnie Scribner), the young son of Alice (Jennifer Darling) and Floyd Gaines (John Gabriel). While exploring the ship, Vicki and Keith meet a young stowaway named Luis (Tony Ramirez). Though Vicki is not enthused about hiding a stowaway from her father, she still takes a blood oath and promises to protect Luis. (This would be ground for Vicki being fired if she was actually a paid member of the crew as opposed to just someone who pretends tp have a job.) As for Keith, he steals $200 from his parents and gives it to Luis. His parents freak out when they can’t find the money and they accuse the crew of robbing them! (The crew can’t even handle a jealous husband. How are they going to steal $200?) While searching for the money, Gopher and Julie discover Luis.

So, I guess Luis is going into the juvenile justice system, right? No, not on The Love Boat! Keith’s parents allow Luis to have the money and Stubing and Vicki pay for Luis’s ticket so Luis is no longer a stowaway. This storyline was okay. All of the kids were natural actors so things never got overly cutesy. That said, I can’t help that notice that a lot of people have stowed away on the ship over the years. Captain Stubing might want to talk to his crew about that.

Next week …. an agent of Child Protective Services takes a cruise. Look out, Vicki!

Back to School #47: School Ties (dir by Robert Mandel)

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past two and a half weeks, we’ve been reviewing 80 of the best, worst, most memorable, and most forgettable high school films ever made. We’ve been going in chronological order, starting with two films from 1946 and then working our way through the years that followed. After 46 reviews, we are now ready to enter the 1990s.

And what better way to kick off the 90s than by taking a look at a film from 1992 that very few people seem to have ever heard of?

School Ties takes place in the 1950s, which of course means that everyone dresses like either James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause or Troy Donaue in A Summer Place. It also means that the soundtrack is full of the same songs that tend to turn up in every film about the 1950s. David Greene (Brendan Fraser) is a working-class teen from Pennsylvania* who wins a football scholarship to attend an exclusive prep school in Massachusetts. At first, David struggles to fit in. Not only are all of his classmates rich but they’re also extremely anti-Semitic. However, David wins them over by playing hard on the football field and hiding the fact that he’s Jewish. However, when the jealous Charlie Dillon (Matt Damon) discovers that David is a Jew, he reveals his secret and David is forced to confront his prejudiced classmates.

School Ties is one of those extremely well-intentioned films that’s never quite as good as you might hope. With the exception of David and Charlie, the characters are all pretty thinly drawn and there’s more than a few subplots that really don’t really work. For instance, Zeljko Ivanek shows up playing a sadistic French teacher who harasses one of Fraser’s friends (played by Andrew Lowery) and, as I watched Ivanek drive Lowery to the point of a nervous breakdown over proper verb conjugation, it occurred to me that I knew Ivanek was evil as soon as he showed up wearing his little bow tie and his beret. (It’s also interesting how French teachers are always evil in films like this.)

That said, the message of School Ties is still a timely one. On the surface, the message of “Don’t be an intolerant, prejudiced prick,” might seem pretty simplistic and self-explanatory. However, every day we’re confronted with evidence that there are still people out there who don’t understand this simple concept. As such, it’s a message that can stand being repeated a few times.

(Seriously, don’t be an intolerant, prejudiced prick.)

When seen today, School Ties is mostly interesting for who appears in it. For instance, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Cole Hauser all show up here, 5 years before they would all co-star in Good Will Hunting. One of the anti-Semitic students is played by Anthony Rapp who, a year later, would appear with Affleck and Hauser in Dazed and Confused. Fraser’s sympathetic roommate is played by Chris O’Donnell. As for Brendan Fraser himself, it’s a bit odd to see him playing such a dramatic role but he’s convincing and believable as a football player. It’s a good-looking cast and yes, you better believe that there’s a fight scene that takes place in a shower. If you’ve ever wanted to see Brendan Fraser and Matt Damon wrestling each other while naked — well, this is the film to see.

—-

* Interestingly enough, David’s family lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania so I guess David could very well have gone to elementary school with Joe Biden and he may have family working at Dunder-Mifflin.