The Graduate will celebrate it’s 50th Anniversary on December 22.  The most unexpected cinematic blockbuster of the sixties, The Graduate has contributed a wealth of iconic images to American popular culture.  Mrs. Robinson’s status as the original “cougar,” the titillation of glimpsing a hapless young man through her shapely arched leg, and the mere mention of “plastics”—all these have, over the past half-century, become part of our vernacular. The wedding scene that punctuates this spicy 1967 Mike Nichols comedy is continually referenced on television shows like The Simpsons, on the big screen, and in New Yorker cartoons. When The Graduate was newly released, it spoke to a generation of young people who questioned their place in a rapidly changing world. Beverly Gray’s SEDUCED BY MRS. ROBINSON: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation (Algonquin; Nov 7, 2017) celebrates the 50th anniversary of this cultural phenomenon, putting the film in historical context and offering new insights and newly-revealed factoids.