366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 321

The Date: August 16

The Movie: Lenny (1974)

What Is It?: Bob Fosse made his name in musical theater as an actor, dancer and choreographer, and his cinematic work followed suit when he directed and choreographed the musicals Sweet Charity and Cabaret. A biopic about a comedian may seem an odd choice for Fosse’s third directorial effort. It all makes sense when you see it. Lenny is a musical without a single musical number. Everything from the editing to the actors’ movements appears expertly choreographed, the rhythms flowing from one potentially jarring time jump to the next with the abandon and perfection of a John Coltrane riff. Dustin Hoffman as Bruce and Valerie Perrine as his wife give landmark performances: Hoffman’s final contempt-of-court monologue is one of the truest things on film, and Perrine’s interview sequences don’t betray a splinter of artifice.

Why Today?: Today is National Tell a Joke Day.

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 164

The Date: March 12

The Movie: The Graduate (1967)

What Is It?: Dustin Hoffman graduates college, decides against a career in plastics, can’t decide between Anne Bancroft and her daughter Katherine Ross, and drifts around looking adrift to a soundtrack of Simon & Garfunkel classics. Classic!  

Why Today?: On this day in 1969, “Mrs. Robinson” wins the Grammy for record of the year.

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 158

The Date: March 6

The Movie: Marathon Man (1976)

What Is It?: John Schlesinger’s thriller in which Dustin Hoffman butts heads with the Nazi sadist (Lawrence Olivier) who killed his secret agent brother (Roy Scheider) is most famous for its horrific dental torture scene (“Is it safe?”), but it also deserves props for having cinema’s only car chase worth a damn.

Why Today?: Today is Dentist Appreciation Day.

Review: 'The Graduate' Blu-ray

The Graduate sits in that small, honored clutch of films that are difficult to view objectively because they are so ingrained in the American consciousness.

A quick spin of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” instantly brings about images of Anne Bancroft seducing Dustin Hoffman’s adrift college grad Benjamin Braddock even though Simon’s lyrics have nothing to do with that. We would never think to question the decidedly un-Waspys Hoffman as such a Waspy character because he is Benjamin Braddock, who changed the way we peer into fish tanks and sink to the bottoms of swimming pools. “Are you trying to seduce me?” “Plastics.” “Elaine! Elaine!” They are all nondescript words and phrases on their own, and they all sway with meaning and memories and humor because of their place in Mike Nichols’s iconic film. And that film’s overpowering iconography cannot overpower pleasures that still remain fresh after almost fifty years (try saying that about Gone with the Wind and meaning it).  Buck Henry’s script is just as funny as ever. The damaged duo of Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson are just as poignant, and Hoffman and Bancroft’s performances remain brilliantly nuanced. The “Sounds of Silence/April Come She Will” sequence remains an absolute editing tour de force.

However, the film still has the ability to surprise, as Katharine Ross’s gut-wrenching turn as Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine (who will apparently turn into a pumpkin if she doesn’t marry one of two pretty awful potential husbands within 48 hours) has not received as much attention throughout the years as it deserves. As Benjamin’s mom, Elizabeth Wilson gives a broad and hilarious performance that never feels like it was shipped in from some daffier movie. Also, the fact that Benjamin is really unstable often gets lost amidst the prevailing image of him as a sympathetic guy just trying to find direction in a world populated by middle-aged richies completely divorced from the fact that they’re living through a revolutionary decade.

Criterion’s new blu-ray edition of The Graduate allows many opportunities to be surprised all over again too. One of the quintessential films of American cinema has a rather European aesthetic, and its shadows are served well by a presentation that is dark and rich. The restoration is flawless. Supplements are plentiful, with a new 38-minute interview with Dustin Hoffman and a 25 minute one with Buck Henry and producer Lawrence Turman. These pieces get into the film’s inception and casting and how radical it was to put Hoffman in a role like this in 1967. There are archival interviews with Mike Nichols and Paul Simon, the only places among the extras that either of these major Graduate figures gets to speak. There’s also a short documentary from 1992 that repeats information from several of the other supplements but provides the only place to hear Katharine Ross talk about the film (sadly, Anne Bancroft’s first-hand accounts are missing from all supplements). There are screen tests with Hoffman and Ross and four other actors who probably would have been badly miscast as Benjamin and Elaine; an interview with Bobbie O’Steen, film history and widow of Graduate-editor Sam O’Steen; a couple of old audio commentaries (one with Nichols and Steven Soderbergh; one with film scholar Howard Suber); and additional conversation with Graduate fans such as David O. Russell, Harold Ramis, and Henry Rollins. The Graduate is one of the most essential movies that will ever land in the Criterion Collection, and the company does right by it through and through.

Review: 'Lenny' Blu-ray

The subjects of celebrity biopics are almost never as important as the people who make them. Too many celebrities live lives that hit the same beats. This is even true of Lenny Bruce, the infamous and groundbreaking comic who became a martyr in the war against censorship with routines notable for their truthfulness about sex, media, and self-expression, not their alleged dirtiness. Bruce’s career began inauspiciously; he hooked up with a tolerant woman, achieved stardom by pushing boundaries, succumbed to various vices, broke down, and died young. It’s a tale often told. How Bob Fosse told it is rare.

Fosse, off course, made his name in musical theater as an actor, dancer and choreographer, and his cinematic work followed suit when he directed and choreographed the musicals Sweet Charity and Cabaret. A biopic about a comedian may seem an odd choice for Fosse’s third directorial effort. It all makes sense when you see it. Lenny is a musical without a single musical number. Everything from the editing to the actors’ movements appears expertly choreographed, the rhythms flowing from one potentially jarring time jump to the next with the abandon and perfection of a John Coltrane riff.

The director does not deserve all the credit. Dustin Hoffman as Bruce and Valerie Perrine as his wife give landmark performances: Hoffman’s final contempt-of-court monologue is one of the truest things on film, and Perrine’s interview sequences don’t betray a splinter of artifice. But one thing I really dig about Lenny—and which really, really sets it apart from the mass of biopics—is how interested the director is in everyone on screen. I mean everyone. Even the briefly glimpsed audience members seem to have inner lives as they react to Bruce’s routines with laughter, gaping mouths, rolling eyes, blank expressions, or even a complicit and touchingly romantic stolen kiss. As stylized as Fosse’s rhythms and chronology are, his people are utterly real whether they’re participating in an abstract ménage à trois totally fabricated by the director or pseudo-documentary interviews.

Fosse shot Lenny on high-contrast black and white stock, although the smoky, gauzy lighting of nightclubs, crummy apartments, drug dens, and jails defuses its crispness. Twilight Time’s new blu-ray doesn’t sharpen the film, but it is a clean presentation with healthy grain. Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman provide a new commentary track in which they gab about the significant differences between the film and the play on which it was based (both written by Julian Barry), Bruce and Fosse’s careers and legacy, and how Fosse dragged such an extraordinary performance out of Perrine. It’s a lively commentary, but some actual footage of Bruce would have been a cool bonus too. The disc also includes the customary isolated score track and is limited to 3,000 units.

Get Lenny on Screen Archives.com here.