Here's To You, Mrs. Robinson

[rejectomorph]

Looking through Anne Bancroft's filmography, I was a bit surprised at how few of her movies I've seen. She has loomed larger in my thoughts than my limited exposure to her work might suggest. This may be the result of the fact that the first movie in which I remember seeing her was The Miracle Worker. Her turn as Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher, was one of the classic performances of the era, and the impression it left on me has endured. I saw the movie at a time when I had only recently begun to go to movies on my own, wandering far from the confines of my suburban neighborhood, and The Miracle Worker's portrayal of perseverance and determination in pursuit of liberation, despite both opposition from others and one's own very real limitations, was, though I wasn't conscious of it at the time, a particularly apt parallel to my own situation, however much my situation differed in degree from that of the tale's protagonists. As I sat in the fading grandeur of the Palace Theater in downtown Los Angeles, watching the austere, black and white scenes flicker on the screen, I must have absorbed some part of that determination which Anne Bancroft's performance so splendidly conveyed. I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

Since then, I've seen a handful of the movies in which she had supporting roles, and a few in which she played a lead character, including The Prisoner of Second Avenue, To Be or Not to Be, and, of course, The Graduate. I have to admit to not being a fan of this last movie, despite its iconic status with most members of my generation. Personally, I'd have much preferred to see a movie entirely about Mrs. Robinson. I've always considered Bancroft's performance to be the best in the movie.

Anne Bancroft also played a lead role in 84 Charing Cross Road, a movie which was released in 1987, but wasn't a big success at the time. Long neglected, this tale based on Helene Hanff's memoir of her long relationship (through correspondence) with a London bookshop clerk, now appears frequently on cable television, and gave Bancroft one of her most engaging roles. It's very sweet, and sad, and amusing. Don't miss it. There are also a few of Bancroft's earlier movies, in which she has supporting roles, which are worth seeing, and I would especially recommend the noirish New York Confidential, from 1955. Looking at her filmography, I see that there are quite a few of her films that I've never seen but would like to see. I know that, even when I haven't much liked a particular movie in which she has appeared, I have always been able to count on her performance to bring some interest to it. I think I'll be watching more of her work in the future and, again, I'm sure I won't be the only one.


Anne Bancroft

1931 - 2005

Comments

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

Yes I was saddened more than I'd have expected.
A few weeks ago I happened to queue up the largely lamentable remake of Great Expectations she was in maybe seven or eight years ago. It's a movie with some stupid writing, some imaginative visuals, and a lot of good performances. The reason I rented it though, and the reason to see it, is Anne Bancroft indulging in high camp and managing also to make a fleetingly quite moving character out of the draggy personage she's playing.
Put me in mind also of how charming she is in the mostly leaden comedy To Be or Not to Be.
I haven't seen that many of her films, either, but I miss her.

[marseille.livejournal.com]

Yes, I loved 84 Charing Cross Road! As much for the books and bookstore as for the performances.

[gutbloom.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of "To Be or Not to Be" because it came at a time when I thought each Mel Brooks movie was going to be worse than the previous one. It was a bump on the downslope, but recently I rewatched "Men in Tights" and I think it's a much funnier movie than anything out today.

I really love The Graduate.

[rejectomorph]

Benjamin annoyed me. This might have been the result of my slum-dweller's bias. (Well, OK, it wasn't a proper slum, but merely an old and shabby working class suburb, but still.) I found his upper-middle-class angst and youthful alienation a bit self-indulgent. I found myself imagining (with some schadenfreude) what would have happened to Benjamin had he wandered down our block at the age of, say, eleven or twelve. They were not pretty thoughts.

Elaine was a bit of a stiff, too. I found it hard to believe that she could be Mrs. Robinson's daughter. In fact, I've sometimes wondered if the odd inversion of audience expectations about these two characters was what inspired Mary Rodgers to write the book that launched that whole series of parent-child body trading movies, Freaky Friday.

In any case, I was unable to identify myself with any of the young characters in the movie, or to feel any deep sympathy for them. I still can't. They just came from a different world, I suppose.

[rejectomorph]

It was a movie full of people one wouldn't mind spending time with.

[rejectomorph]

It's probably unwise to try to remake anything by Lubitsch. Most of his stories were a mixture of the utterly improbable with a great mass of fluff, and they succeded only because of his ability to make airy atmosphere appear as substance. Nobody else can ever quite bring it off (though I'd say that Silk Stockings came closest, and is an enjoyable movie, even though I prefer Ninotchka.)

I saw part of the version of Great Expectations you mention, stumbling across it near the end while channel surfing one night. It took me a couple of minutes to recognize the tale, given the altered setting and the character name changes. What I saw of Bancroft's performance was interesting, indeed. The way she played the character, it was almost as though Miss Haversham was being channeled by the entirely mad Blanche Dubois.