Before The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman was already breaking hearts in obscurity.
Dustin Hoffman stars in this television adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's tale about Dmitri Zoditch, a simple manuscript reader at a publishing house whose grand dreams don't square with his dead-end job and miserable apartment. When he's assigned to read the diary of a nobleman, he finds bitter parallels between his own pathetic existence and the wasted life described in the journal. Michael Tolan and Charlotte Rae co-star.
Acting
Hoffman's desperation before he was famous.
Writing
Turgenev's 19th-century dread, perfectly preserved.
Director
Earl Dawson
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This aired on NET (PBS predecessor) in 1966, two years before The Graduate made Hoffman a star. Nearly lost until a print surfaced in 2016.
Turgenev's original 1850 story was banned in Russia for its critique of aristocratic idleness; this adaptation quietly updates that class critique for mid-century office drones.
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