Mad Men Adieu

Mark your calendars as Sunday, April 13th is the beginning of the end -- Mad Men season finale that is.  AMC is dividing the final season in half, airing the first seven episodes next month with the latter airing at a later date (possibly 2015).

Here is a sneak peek from Season Seven. Judging by the looks of things, they have either landed a huge airline account or the cast is accompanying Don Draper to rehab. (Actually these are press photos). Stay tuned for my interview with one of the principals which I will post at a later date. I didn't dare ask anything about the finale as I don't want to know (nor would any secrets be divulged!) I did hear we may be looking at a Sopranos style ending. It's been a great ride and sad to see it end.

Photo Credits: Frank Ockenfels/AMC

Before there was Mad Men...

...there was The Best of Everything. And perhaps the poster below says it all.

Novelist Rona Jaffe's 1958 bestseller turned 1959 film was the story of young career women in a pre-women's liberated Manhattan. Hope Lange plays Caroline Bender, an Ivy League graduate who toils away in the dead-end secretarial typing pool at Fabian Publications and fears her aspirations will turn her into the wicked book editor Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford). Caroline lives with fellow secretaries April (Diane Baker) who is biding her time until Mr. Right comes along and Gregg (Suzy Parker), an aspiring actress. 

Mad Men's Don Draper reading the popular novel

The "yarn" as it was called in the sixties (today it would be a chick flick) has it all - a ruthless single female boss having an empty affair, lecherous lotharios, sexual and office politics, stalking, lots of alcohol and an unwed pregnancy thrown in for good measure. Signs of the times and an obvious precursor to Mad Men.

The parallels of Jaffe and her ambitious heroine Caroline are similar. The Radcliffe grad worked her way up from filing clerk to Associate Editor at Fawcett Publications and later became a contributing writer at Cosmopolitan for one of the female publishing pioneers Helen Gurley Brown (whose book Sex and the Single Girl placed her at the front of the feminist movement). Putting her successful career first, Jaffe never married.

Crawford as book editor Amanda Farrow

While her role was small, Joan Crawford was the biggest star in the film. In the autumn of her career at the age of 55 (hey, it was and is Hollywood) and recently widowed (Chairman Al Steele of Pepsi), the Mildred Pierce star apparently lived up to her "no wire hangers" image on set. As the story goes, she would arrive with a large Pepsi thermos filled with ice and 140 proof Vodka along with a small black alligator bag filled with jewels. Her entourage was always in tow and the set was kept cold to preserve her makeup. Often accompanied by her twelve-year-old twins, no one was allowed to speak to her until she spoke to them first. The film also marked Crawford's first supporting role since her days in early Hollywood and many think she took for financial reasons (hence, the Vodka). 

The film, designed by Jack Martin Smith. Mark-Lee Kirk and Lyle Wheeler, was set in New York's Seagrams Building at 375 Park Avenue. Designed by architect Mies Van Der Rohe, the International Style structure was considered the world's most expensive structure at the time. The interiors were built on the soundstage at Twentieth Century Fox and reportedly influenced by the sparse, utilitarian offices of Pocket Books who published the novel. 

Lange and Crawford

The secretarial pool takes a smoking break under the watchful eye of Mad Men's Joan in a similar set

Suzy Parker and her Royal typewriter

If the term supermodel were around in the early sixties, it would have applied to Suzy Parker who plays the supporting role of Gregg. Best known for her modeling work for Revlon and Coco Chanel, she was a muse to photographer Richard Avedon and one of the first to earn $100,000 a year. She also starred in films Ten North Frederick (1958) with Gary Cooper and had a cameo in Funny Face (1957) with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. 

Parker modeling for Vogue in Paris

No apartment was complete without a bar in the sixties

The film also starred Robert Evans as the unscrupulous playboy Dexter Key who hooks up with April (Diane Baker, shown above). A former Paramount studio chief who successfully produced film classics such as Love Story, Rosemary's Baby, The Godfather and Chinatown, he was also known for his discovery and subsequent marriage to Ali MacGraw.

Parker with Louis Jordan as director and love interest David Savage

Brian Aherne plays the office lech "Fred Shalimar"

Stephen Boyd as editor Mike Rice

The film was shot on location in Central Park, Sheridan Square
 and the exterior of the Seagrams Building and on the Fox soundstage 

You have to wonder when Hollywood will do a remake...or was that Sex and the City?
And for those of you unaware and possibly living on the planet Mars, Mad Men is back this Sunday, March 25th on AMC. Finally the wait is over for season five....and don't even think about calling me after 9:00/8:00 p.m. Central.

Photo Credits: AMC, Twentieth Century Fox

Primetime Creative Emmys

While Sunday, September 18th is the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards, Emmys were handed out for the Creative Arts this past week in Los Angeles. Congrats to production designer Mark Friedberg, art director Peter Rogness and set decorator Ellen Christiansen-De Jonge for their Outstanding Art Direction for Mini Series or Movie for Mildred Pierce (beating out a stellar list of Downton Abbey, The Kennedys and Upstairs Downstairs).

Thirties interiors above and below for Mildred Pierce

The Kennedys

Other winners in the art direction category included Hot in Cleveland (Michael Haynes and Marilee Zekiker) and Boardwalk Empire (Bob Shaw, Douglas Huszti, and Debra Schutt) in a category that included Mad Men, Modern Family and The Borgias.

Hot In Cleveland - one of the best shows you may not be watching

Boardwalk Empire's interiors fit for a gangster

Draper living room in Mad Men

Mad Men's Sixties sets

True Blood

In the best costume category, Downton Abbey (Susannah Buxton and Caroline McCall) took home honors for miniseries over the seventies fashions of Cinema Verite and period designs of Mildred Pierce and Upstairs Downstairs. The Borgias won over perennial favorite Mad Men, Glee and Boardwalk Empire in the series category.

Downton Abbey above and below - a costume designer's delight

The Borgias Holliday Grainger as Lucrezia Borga

Upstairs Downstairs

The Primetime Emmys air on Fox at 8 pm eastern with Glee's Jane Lynch as host. And of course the real show begins with the red carpet arrivals several hours before. It's always fun to watch the reaction of those who don't win, the opening numbers and any sort of snafu caught live -- it's the ultimate sporting event. Happy Emmy weekend and as usual, I will be pulling for Mad Men but I think Emmy voters may have forgotten about it as a long hiatus never benefits anyone.


Photo Credits: HBO, PBS, Showtime, Set Decor, AMC

The Perfect Cocktail: The Marriage of The Banana and Mad Men

Coming soon to a mall near you will be the sixties style fashions from AMC's popular hit series Mad Men. Emmy winning costume designer Jane Bryant teamed with the venerable retail chain to design a 65 item collection that includes everything from suits and dresses to men's hats and a leopard coat. I have always loved the tailored classics of the sixties and for those of us who love nostalgia, great lines and retro fashions, it's a closet godsend.

The collection sprung out of a friendship with Banana creative director Simon Keene and Bryant who clearly appreciate the intrinsic value of a good white shirt. And it's all here -- the two button men's suit, trench coats, high waisted skirts and leopard print pumps just to name a few. Items will range from 198.00 for a faux leopard coat to 450.00 for a men's suit. Information on the collection is  available on Facebook  and the AMC website and for those of you on Gilt Groupe, the fashions will also be offered here on Monday, July 25th for 36 hours beginning at noon - a full three weeks before the fashions hit the stores.

This is not the first time Mad Men mania has influenced styles -- Brooks Brothers designed a men's suit last year and Nailtini teamed with Bryant to come up with nail polish colors such as the Garden Party Collection below.

Throw on a cluster of pearls and leather gloves and you too can channel your inner Betty or Joan. Toss on a crisp white shirt and a trilby hat for a Sterling Cooper/Don Draper look when the collection hits stores August 10th.

Thankfully we have the Banana to remind us of all things Madison Avenue sixties as  Season Five series will not resume until 2012. Until then, get your fix with some Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies and Dean Martin television show reruns.

And speaking of Mad Men, stay tuned for my interview/Array Magazine cover story with the show's Bryan Batt (who played Salvatore Romano, closeted art director) and his upcoming design book big, Easy Style (Clarkson Potter, October, 2011). He is thoroughly charming, entertaining and very multi-talented and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend his first book/loving and hilarious tribute to his late mother, She Ain't Heavy, She's My Mother as well as his New Orleans store Hazelnut. I just hope the powers that be at Mad Men (are you listening Matt Weiner?) bring him back on the show next year. As Batt noted, "Well Matt says my character is not dead" which is always a good sign.

Photo Credits: Banana Republic, Clarkson Potter

Sixties Redux: A Single Man

Yet another visit to the sixties comes to theaters December 11th (limited release) with the debut of A Single Man (Weinstein Company). Set in early sixties Los Angeles at the height of the Cuban missle crisis, the film follows a day in the life of George Falconer (played by Colin Firth), a British college professor who is dealing with the death of his long-time companion. Julianne Moore plays his close friend and London socialite Charley who helps him through the ordeal (and longs to return to a tryst the two shared years ago).

Based on the Christopher Isherwood's cult classic, the film marks the directorial debut of fashion designer and creative director Tom Ford. The leap from fashion to film has certainly been a success for the "God of Gucci" as the film is garnering alot of Oscar buzz since its debut at the Venice Film Festival. And what Ford has done for Gucci will no doubt be reflected in his use of color, minimalism, light and the design of the film.

The style of the sixties have been beautifully captured by none other than Dan Bishop, production designer of the highly stylized Mad Men (and who better?). Firth's character George lives in a Neura-style glass house filled with perfectionism, designer suits, wood panelling and modern furniture. Moore's Charley is total sixties glam from her heavy eyeliner, pastel lipstick and "updo" hairstyles to Oscar nominated Arianne Phillip's Mod costumes (she was nominated for Walk the Line and was a long time stylist for Madonna).

Ford had much input on not only the film's direction but the overall look as well as Moore explains, "From the clothes to the soft furnishings, Tom was very passionate about what you want from a director. George's life was reflected in the modern but conservative furniture in his house and my room was exactly how I imagined Charley's would be. Tom's a guy who looks at the whole picture." And while the film looks expensive, the production and costume designs were done on a budget as Ford painted all the paintings in George's house himself and many of the costumes were vintage.

Ford and Firth

For more on the film, read writer Anne Thompson's wonderful interview with Tom Ford on Thompson on Hollywood.

Photos courtesy of The Weinstein Company - Edward Grau @ The Weinstein Company 2009.