Here's to You, Mrs. Robinson, 40 Years Later

It seemed destined to be an art house anachronism. The director was inexperienced, the lead actor unknown and apparently miscast, the score cobbled together. The result, however, was one of the seminal works in the history of American cinema, "The Graduate. " As the 40th anniverary DVD is released, the San Francisco Chronicle looks back at the icon of an era.

Dustin Hoffman, was an unknown 29-year-old New York stage actor who got the role as uneasy, disaffected college grad Benjamin Braddock, even though Robert Redford, Warren Beatty and a number of  other  conventionally handsome Hollywood stars had been considered.  "I always felt I was miscast," Hoffman now says of the movie that launched his spectacular Hollywood career. (More The Graduate stories.)