Mike Nichols always had wanted to do a movie version of a slim novel called "The Graduate," but he put it off in order to direct Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."
The movie adaptation of the Edward Albee play won five Academy Awards.Acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most exciting young directors, Nichols went to work on "The Graduate," casting the then-unknown Dustin Hoffman as the confused young man just out of college who has an affair with a friend (Anne Bancroft) of his parents.
The result was more than a hit film and an Oscar in 1967 for Nichols. "The Graduate" was an event, symbolizing for many the "generation gap" that was tearing apart the country. Today, it holds up as a sharp comedy of manners, especially the seduction of the timid Hoffman by the formidable Bancroft.
" `The Graduate' was such a startling experience for all of us. We were so taken aback by what happened," Nichols recalled in a recent interview.
"We did student screenings to create interest in the picture before it was released and there was one thing that came up over and over: Why wasn't it about Vietnam, because that was the politically correct thing to be concerned with at the moment. It never occurred to me that `The Graduate' was something that was happening."