When Benjamin is shown banging on the church window with his arms raised and extended, many reviewers felt he was portrayed as a Christ-like image. In actuality, this was a compromise with the minister of the church. The minister had threatened to throw everyone out when the scene was rehearsed with Benjamin pounding his fists on the fragile window, which had been a gift to the church.
When Elaine tracks down Ben in his gloomy room and he causes her to scream, a number of other tenants gather behind the landlord in the doorway. One says, "Shall I get the cops? I'll get the cops..." It's Richard Dreyfuss.
Within a year of the movie's release, plastic manufacturing companies became enormously successful. Many people attribute this to Walter Brooke's quote about "plastics". Brooke himself once told his nephew that he would have invested in plastics, if he had known that the remark would lead to such success.
In The Graduate, the scene of Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft's first romantic encounter was shot at the Knickerbocker Hotel (now The Hollywood Knickerbocker Apartments, a home for seniors) at 1714 Ivar Avenue in Los Angeles, California.
Martin Melcher (Doris Day's husband and manager), "turned down" the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (for Doris). When the film's producer sent him the novel, he was reportedly so offended by it that he never even showed it to his wife, costing her a role that might have revived her film career.
Once upon a time, the Knickerbocker Hotel at 1714 Ivar Avenue in Los Angeles, California, played a key role in Hollywood lore. Rudolph Valentino hung out at the hotel bar, and reportedly liked to dance the Tango there. Frances Farmer was arrested in her room at the hotel in 1943, after skipping a visit with her parole officer. Marilyn Monroe honeymooned there with Joe Dimaggio in January of 1954. Elvis Presley enjoyed staying in suite 1016. He stayed there in 1956, while shooting Love Me Tender. Other stars who lived there include Frank Sinatra, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Mae West, Laurel & Hardy, and Cecil B. DeMille. Later, the hotel played an important part in the movie, The Graduate (1967), as the scene of Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft's first romantic encounter.