THE GRADUATE NUMBER$

• 0 = Number of sequels
• 1= Box-office rank among films directed by Mike Nichols (adjusted for inflation)
• 1= Box-office rank among films starring Dustin Hoffman (adjusted for inflation)
• 1 = Number of Academy Awards
• 1 = Rank among Embassy’s all-time top-earning movies at close of original run
• 1 = Rank among top-earning films of 1967 (legacy)
• 2 = Rank among top-earning movies of the 1960s
• 3 = Peak all-time box-office chart position*
• 7 = Number of Academy Award nominations*
• 22 = Rank on current list of all-time top-grossing films (adjusted for inflation)
• 34 = Number of theaters showing movie during opening week
• 50 = Number of years Embassy’s top-earning film*
• 58 = Number of weeks of longest-running engagement*

• $3.0 million = Production cost
• $22.2 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
• $43.1 million = Box-office rental* (original release)
• $49.3 million = Box-office rental* (original + re-releases)
• $349.3 million = Box-office rental* (adjusted for inflation)
• $104.9 million = Box-office gross*
• $743.5 million = Box-office gross* (adjusted for inflation)

*Embassy/Avco Embassy Pictures record

A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES

“Funny, outrageous, and touching, The Graduate is a sophisticated film that puts Mr. Nichols and his associates on a level with any of the best satirists working abroad today…. A picture you’ll have to see — and maybe see twice to savor all its sharp satiric wit and cinematic treats.” — Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

“Mike Nichols has made the freshest, funniest and most touching film of the year.” — Hollis Alpert, Saturday Review

“A milestone in American film history!” — Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

“[The Graduate] starts out to satirize the alienated spirit of modern youth, does so with uncommon brilliance for its first hour, but ends up selling out to the very spirit its creators intended to make fun of…. It’s a shame — they were halfway to something wonderful when they skidded on a patch of greasy kid stuff.” — Richard Schickel, Life

“Maybe director Mike Nichols can do no wrong. He now has bridged the generation gap in a brilliant second film called The Graduate. Younger moviegoers (but not too young) are virtually certain to rally around it because of its sympathetic understanding. Older generations should be equally happy with it for its enlightenment, for how its recall of how it is to be young.” — Harry MacArthur, The Washington Star

“Dustin Hoffman, known to many Boston theater goers for his excellent work in local little theaters, has become a star with his first feature-sized screen role. His performance in the title role is extraordinary.” — Alta Maloney, The Boston Herald

“The Graduate stands at the head of its class.” — Playboy

“All that is new about Generation Gap is the phrase itself. And in spite of the enthusiasm for it among the young, it seems to me The Graduate only makes a few exaggerated points about familiar facts of life and then slides off into the kind of frantic nonsense Mack Sennett would have made if he had had the money.” — David Brinkley, Ladies’ Home Journal

“The young market, particularly, will dig this Embassy (overseas, United Artists) release and older audiences also will be amused. Strong [box office] prospects are likely in initial exclusive bookings, as a setup for a hotsy general playoff” — A.D. Murphy, Variety

“The Graduate is rousing its young audiences to post-picture applause for creators who cannot hear it, although they undoubtedly would appreciate the gesture in absentia.” — James Meade, The San Diego Union

“Katharine Ross is beautiful, talented, surely this year’s Julie Christie!” — Liz Smith, Cosmopolitan

“Not so much rock as rock bottom [referring to Paul Simon’s lyrics].” — John Simon, New Leader

“How could you convince [moviegoers] that a movie that sells innocence is a very commercial piece of work when they’re so clearly in the market to buy innocence?” — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

“One of the year’s 10 best.” — Joseph Morgenstern, Newsweek

“The Graduate is a showy, gimmicky, ostentatious movie — and if it weren’t, it would be much less interesting and entertaining. Nichols’ visual approach to each scene is so unusual that it draws attention to itself, and this becomes part of the fun of watching the film.” — John Hartl, The Seattle Times

“[Y]oung people are falling for the film along with the old people, because it satisfies their most infantile fantasies of alienation and purity in a hostile world, their most simplistic notions of the generation gap, and their mushiest daydreams about the saving power of love.” — Stephen Farber and Estelle Changas, Film Quarterly

“A dazzling comedy. Mike Nichols is a brilliant, imaginative and free-wheeling movie director. The Graduate confirms not simply that he is a master of comedy, but that he is a master of the motion picture form.” — Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times

“Chalk up another winner for Mike Nichols. The director earns his Ph.D in the rousing comedy, The Graduate. Hoffman is the best leading man to turn up since Jack Lemmon and Miss Ross is a good actress with the kind of fresh expressive face that sends artists rushing to their canvases. Nichols has given us one of the best comedies of the year and has taken his place among the genuinely gifted directors of our time.” — Ernest Schier, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin

“The acting, editing, and photography are all exemplary. The backgrounds include Berkeley, the Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco Zoo as well as Southern California. Many of the sight gags and lines are bright, and Nichols uses the score to comment ironically and compassionately.” — P.K., San Francisco Chronicle

“The Graduate, the funniest American comedy of the year, is inspired by the free spirit which the young British directors have brought into their movies. It is funny, not because of sight gags and punch lines and other tired rubbish, but because it has a point of view. That is to say, it is against something. Comedy is naturally subversive, no matter what Doris Day thinks.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

THE ORIGINAL THEATRICAL ENGAGEMENTS

The invitational world premiere screening of The Graduate was held December 20th, 1967, at the Coronet in New York.

The reference list in this section of the article highlights Embassy’s distribution strategy of opening The Graduate in only a handful of carefully selected markets, primarily in small- and medium-sized venues to guide sellouts, long lines and, ultimately, long-running engagements. The film’s release widened gradually beginning in February 1968. (The subsequent bookings, along with any second-run, re-release and international bookings, have not been cited in this work.)

The listing offers a snapshot of the important initial weeks of the film’s release. And, as a bonus, the engagement duration figures have been provided for some of the entries so as to provide a sense of how popular the film proved to be. Note the duration figures which, despite multiple screenings per day, rival those of the popular limited-screening roadshow releases during the same era.

Opening date YYYY-MM-DD … City — Cinema (engagement duration in weeks)

• 1967-12-21 … Los Angeles — Four Star (51)
• 1967-12-21 … New York — 57th St. Lincoln Art (45)
• 1967-12-21 … New York — Coronet (51)

• 1967-12-22 … Baltimore (Pikesville) — Pikes (28)
• 1967-12-22 … Baltimore (Towson) — York Road (27)
• 1967-12-22 … Boston — Paris (30)
• 1967-12-22 … Chicago — Carnegie (26)
• 1967-12-22 … Chicago — Loop (25)
• 1967-12-22 … Cincinnati — Grand (23)
• 1967-12-22 … Dayton — Ames
• 1967-12-22 … Denver — Esquire (52)
• 1967-12-22 … Detroit — Vogue
• 1967-12-22 … Detroit (Ferndale) — Radio City (27)
• 1967-12-22 … Detroit (Redford) — Redford
• 1967-12-22 … Miami — Mayfair (19)
• 1967-12-22 … Miami (Coral Gables) — Miracle (18)
• 1967-12-22 … Miami (North Miami Beach) — 163rd Street (18)
• 1967-12-22 … Milwaukee — Esquire (29)
• 1967-12-22 … Milwaukee — Times Fine Arts (32)
• 1967-12-22 … Minneapolis — World (57)
• 1967-12-22 … Philadelphia — Eric Rittenhouse Square (27)
• 1967-12-22 … Philadelphia (Wynnewood) — Eric Wynnewood (27)
• 1967-12-22 … Rochester — Studio 2 (44)
• 1967-12-22 … Sacramento — Alhambra
• 1967-12-22 … Salt Lake City — South East (32)
• 1967-12-22 … San Diego (La Mesa) — Cinema Grossmont (30)
• 1967-12-22 … San Francisco — Metro (46)
• 1967-12-22 … San Jose (Santa Clara) — Cinema 150 (40)
• 1967-12-22 … Seattle — Town (52)
• 1967-12-22 … Trenton — Lincoln (14)
• 1967-12-22 … Washington — Cinema (58)

• 1967-12-23 … Miami (Miami Beach) — Normandy (29)

• 1967-12-25 … Dallas — Northpark Twin (27)

[On to Page 2]

Page 1 Page 2