DVD Review: ‘The Graduate’ remains indispensable

Mike Nichols’ “The Graduate” would have been a harbinger of late ‘60s counterculture if it hadn’t opened several months after the Summer of Love. Of course, it had been shot earlier; Charles Webb’s original novel had been published in 1963; and the movie’s world doesn’t include many actual signs of the ‘60s ... And yet, it couldn’t feel more thematically appropriate for its release date. Together with the 1965 “A Thousand Clowns,” it caught American society’s simmering unspoken mood.

The new Criterion transfer seems less bright than the prior DVDs, but it also recreates the original look more accurately (if decades of memory do not deceive). It’s packed with more than three hours of extras, in addition to two commentary tracks — one recorded in 1987 by UCLA professor Howard Suber, the other in 2007 by Nichols and fan Steven Soderbergh. Suber’s is well-organized and delivered, but, unsurprisingly, Nichols and Soderbergh are more fun.

There are new interviews with Hoffman; screenwriter Buck Henry and producer Lawrence Turman; and Bobbie O’Steen, widow of editor Sam O’Steen. They’re all worth listening to, with Hoffman’s having the most amusing anecdotes.

From the archives, we get a very young Barbara Walters asking Nichols about the upcoming project on a 1966 episode of “The Today Show”; Paul Simon discussing the music on “The Dick Cavett Show” in 1970; a look back prepared in 2007 for the film’s 40th anniversary; and “Students of ‘The Graduate,’” with comments recorded in 2007 from David O. Russell, Harold Ramis, Marc Forster, and others. Finally, we see a screen test of Hoffman and co-star Katharine Ross, as well as those of two other pairs in the same roles. Nichols definitely made the right casting choices.

The Graduate (Criterion, Blu-ray, $39.95; DVD, two discs, $29.95)