This week we’re featuring songs used in movies, and today’s classic movie song of the day is “Mrs. Robinson” by Simon & Garfunkel. This one was heavily featured in the legendary film The Graduate—even though Paul Simon hadn’t finished writing it when the movie was being made!
That’s right, “Mrs. Robinson” wasn’t yet finished when director Mike Nichols decided to include it in his movie. All Mr. Simon had were snippets and a temp title of “Mrs. Roosevelt” (as in Eleanor Roosevelt). That’s why you never hear the complete song in the movie, just a line or two here and there and a lot of “dee dee dees.”
The story goes that Nichols was hip on using S&G songs in The Graduate, as he thought they fit the zeitgeist of the movie. Nichols had already opted to use “The Sound of Silence,” “April Come She Will,” and “Scarborough Fair/Canticle,” and Simon had suggested two other songs that Nichols rejected. That’s when Simon mentioned the new tune he was working on, and it just so happened that the syllables in “Mrs. Roosevelt” fit the syllables in the name of one of the film’s main characters, Mrs. Robinson. It was a perfect fit.
As noted, The Graduate includes a few short snippets of “Mrs. Robinson” but no complete version, so Simon had to finish writing the song to include it on the duo’s then-upcoming album, Bookends. Note that the recorded version of “Mrs. Robinson” differs considerably from the movie version, in terms of both performance and instrumentation; the version you heard on the radio was recorded by studio aces Larry Knechtel on bass and Hal Blaine on percussion, with Paul Simon himself playing acoustic guitars.
Columbia Records, the duo’s label, released “Mrs. Robinson” as a single in April of 1968, more than three months after the movie was released. That late start didn’t seem to hurt the song at all and it quicky rose to #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100. The recording won two Grammy Awards—Record of the Year and Best Contemporary-Pop Performance by a Vocal Duo or Group. In 1999, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
The Graduate, released at Christmastime in 1967, was written by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, the latter of whom also had a small part in the film as the overly helpful hotel desk clerk. Directed by Mike Nichols, the film starred Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross, Anne Bancroft, and William Daniels. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won one, for Mike Nichols as Best Director.
The film was based on Charles Webb’s novel of the same name, and explored a young college graduate’s search for meaning in life, which involved an affair with an older woman (Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson) and falling in love with that woman’s college-aged daughter (Ross’ Elaine Robinson). It was a defining film for a generation, perfectly capturing the ennui and loss of innocence experienced by many young people of that era.
And here’s your daily bonus video of the day, the original trailer for The Graduate, which remains one of my personal favorite films. “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?”
