We Watched It a Thousand Times.
Dustin Hoffman is an unlikely star. He’s not traditionally handsome or even tall. He doesn’t fit well into action movies and he wouldn’t make a good superhero.
In other words, he’s not the type of actor who should be cast in a variety of roles and expect those movies to be mega-hits except for one thing: Dustin Hoffman is an absolutely brilliant actor. He can play any part and make it not only believable but Oscar worthy: single father, street hustler, autistic adult – heck, even a female in Tootsie – and that doesn’t even count his superb performances in exceptional movies like Wag the Dog and I Heart Huckabees. He brought Willy Loman to life. Even his appearance on The Simpsons is my favorite guest appearance in 30+ seasons of the show.
It’s impossible not to believe in Dustin Hoffman’s character every, single time.
But no matter how many brilliant parts he plays, for me there will be nothing greater ever than Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate. Sure, Mike Nichols had a lot to do with its success – its sheer brilliance – but that movie, released originally in 1969 – remains to this day my absolute favorite.
The movie is about a recent college graduate, and it’s a comedy unlike any other written before or since. It’s legendary for its ability to create characters and a story solely through camera angles, use of music, slick editing and quality production.
So after seeing the movie at the Pittsburgh Playhouse for the first time, I wanted to share it with my friends at Mount Union. When I was in college, there was no streaming, so this required a trip to the local video store.
Fortunately we had that truck. When we had to get a video rental card at the rental store, I got one – thinking I’d rent this movie frequently. Thankfully I didn’t need a credit card at the time to guarantee my rental status.
We carried The Graduate into the dorm as though it were a newborn infant. I could hardly wait to share it.
And share it, I did. In fact, we watched it a thousand times. (This is only a slight exaggeration.)
Bonnie and I watched the entire movie over and over and over. People watched with us; we watched alone. We laughed until we cried. The words “here she is having some water” still create hysterics.
And the part where Benjamin is “drifting here in the pool” followed by a solid five minutes of Simon & Garfunkel’s angsty melodies causing its entranced viewers to gasp in angst ourselves … well that part, we watched 3,000 times.
These are moments I will treasure for the rest of my life: sitting around with popcorn and/or beer, studying Dustin’s casual leanings and musical eye shifts, until we had to rewind again. We’d run to the bathroom then race back to hit “play” again.
It’s interesting now that I don’t remember in what room I experienced these treasured moments. I didn’t know anyone who had a TV, let alone a VHS player.
But I remember at the end of my senior year, when we watched it one more time and realized: someone has to return this well-worn VHS to the video rental store! After all, we were only supposed to have it for three days.
We’d had it for seven months.
“Let’s get Larry to return it,” Bonnie said as the year drew to a close. “Nobody’s gonna fuck with Larry!”
Sure enough, Larry sauntered into the video store and dropped off the tape, no questions asked.