‘Mad Men’ remarkably captures feel of early 1960s
Walking onto the set of “Mad Men’s” Sterling Cooper — the famously decadent ’60s advertising agency at the heart of the Emmy’s most-nominated drama (10 p.m. Sundays, AMC) — you feel almost naked without a stiff drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and a girl from the steno pool to sexually harass.
So great is the detail that goes into re-creating the era — from the clothes to the furnishings to the free-wheeling approach to sexual politics that seems to hang in the air — it’s as though you’ve stumbled into 1962: The Museum.
Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the philandering king of Madison Avenue, stands near the break room, all freshly pressed and stiffly coiffed. Draper’s wife, Betty (January Jones), flitters by as though just shaken loose from the pages of Look magazine. And all around them are dozens of electric typewriters, rotary phones and other relics from the days when men were men and women were groped.
“The tough part is when you can’t use the movies for research,” “Mad Men” creator-turned-tour guide Matthew Weiner says of the near-pathological levels of accuracy the series brings to its sets in downtown Los Angeles.
In the early ’60s, New York and Southern California still were separated by distinct furniture styles and color schemes, he explains, and even if a movie from the period featured New York exteriors, odds are the interiors were shot on the West Coast. Whether anyone would know the difference wasn’t the point; Weiner and his team insisted the world of “Mad Men” look exactly like Manhattan, not Manhattan Beach.
Adding to the authenticity, every prop you see onscreen is the real thing, from last season’s elaborate chip-and-dip set to the famed Relaxacizor, the vibrating piece of fitness equipment for which Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) found a somewhat more intimate use. (“Lucky for us, it was a defunct product,” Weiner says, “and no one sued us for it.”)
As impressive as the detail is, it’s not the reason “Mad Men” has wowed critics like few series since the debut of “The Sopranos,” which Weiner was a part of for its last three seasons.
“We’re not making a documentary about the ’60s,” Hamm says. “It’s fun to play because Matt writes wonderful scenes, and wonderful characters and wonderful situations to put them in. But that would be fun in 1960 or 1978 or 1985 or whatever. If it’s a great scene, it’s a great scene.”
Those scenes may work in any era, but it’s the early ’60s setting that makes them remarkable. The two greatest joys of “Mad Men” are admiring Draper as he smokes his ever-present Lucky Strikes as though he’s angry at them and watching office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) walk, her limbs moving as if independent from her body and her hips swiveling in ways that kept parts of Elvis off TV.
(The two deserve their own spinoff. Call it “Smoking & Walking.” Just an hour each week of them doing their thing — smoke, smoke, smoke; walk, walk, walk — with a little lounge music in the background. It would be a sensation.)
After a guided tour of the Draper home that’s so intricate even Weiner gets lost, it’s off to “the white room,” a space that only adds to the museum feel with its displays of photos and sketches of various sets, along with props ranging from mock-ups of Draper’s ad campaigns to explicit nudist magazines.
Hendricks, whose skin looks as though it has never seen a 60-watt bulb, let alone the midday sun, is there, too, in a dress resembling something Barbara Eden would have worn in her “I Dream of Jeannie” days.
The only thing on the entire tour that feels out of place is Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Draper’s young rival Pete Campbell and stands among the artifacts wearing a concert T-shirt and messenger bag.
Well, there’s also the adjacent soundstage where carpenters had been blaring Warrant’s “Cherry Pie,” but even that might not be that anachronistic. Walking through the Drapers’ living room, Weiner swears he wants to work AC/DC’s “Back in Black” into a “Mad Men” episode, so “you’ll see it’s the best song in the world.”
Christopher Lawrence’s Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.
