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#1 2009-09-01 18:22:38
- tmc22
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Ultra Mad Men
OK. This is beyond even my powers of observation. The website Slate.com has a running commentary by multiple critics. Plus very, very bright viewers. For anyone who watched episode three the critics view was this was the best episode ever.
Stuff I didn't figure out but they did: The book the daughter read to the grandfather was "The decline and fall of the roman empire". When Don meet's the older guy at the bar and makes an old fashioned, I didn't remember but apparently the guy's name was Connie. As in Conrad. As in Conrad Hilton, born in the New Mexico territory in the 1880s and would have floated a john boat down the San Antone river as a teenager. and went on to found the Hilton hotel chain and grandfather Paris Hilton. Apparently on the cover of Time in 1962-3. Someone read the article.
Some getup. A white formal coat with contrasting black lapels. I thought he was the bartender at first but Don knew he wasn't.
The critics thought in the marijuana episode the phrase was 'Princeton coxswain'. I still think for obvious reasons it was 'Princeton cocksmen'.
Code Pink!
Last edited by tmc22 (2009-09-01 19:07:08)
#2 2009-09-01 19:10:13
- tmc22
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
I think we will be seeing Connie again. Not for nothing is Don Draper the greatest Mad Man of the age.
The Charleston: The critics thought it was a performance. But if you were 30 or so in 1963 you were born in 1933 and that pair would have gone to dancing school from the age of eight to 14. They would have been taught the Charleston. They were just really good.
Last edited by tmc22 (2009-09-01 19:12:37)
#3 2009-09-01 19:12:47
- AQG
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
I think you caught it right. There was no impugning his cocksmanship.
So, what do we think of the drug dealer as the first character seen sporting madras? Surely not a coincidence with the level of attention shown to costuming in the show.
#7 2009-09-01 19:33:05
- AQG
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
You may well be right, Cooley. However, it only makes the question more interesting. The same sort of garment identifies the highest class character in the show with what 21st century viewers would think of the lowest.
Last edited by AQG (2009-09-01 19:33:51)
#8 2009-09-01 19:37:04
- tmc22
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
My first two jackets as a child were a blue blazer and a madras sports jacket. Third grade maybe. (Everyone, even little kids wore jacket and tie to a restaurant back then) Madras was very popular in the early to mid 60s. Even little kids wore it. I don't think it was unusual at least in the northeast.
#9 2009-09-01 19:46:41
- AQG
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
Surely not unusual at all then, tm. However, I think the director was sending us a message. It may be one that differs significantly from the reality of the time. Perhaps a more literary than sartorial point of discussion. As there are no accidents in so tightly directed a show, why that jacket?
#11 2009-09-01 20:22:32
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
I suspect you're on to something there, Coolidge.
#12 2009-09-01 20:29:13
- tmc22
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
In giving it a little thought: I think I am a bad source. I know I had the madras jacket in the 60s, but which year I'm not sure. I remember wearing it in Maine, but almost every August was spent in Maine that decade. Sometime from 1963-69. But in thinking about it, I am an unreliable source for an exact date.
#13 2009-09-01 21:32:10
- Coolidge
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
My dad says he had his in college which would be '63-'67. In his prep school year books ('59-'63) they are all over the place. The "Dance Committee" is always photographed in them, wearing knit ties, white socks, and weejuns.
I gather they got to be more mainstream as the decade wore on.
Last edited by Coolidge (2009-09-01 21:33:22)
#14 2009-09-21 15:51:50
- tmc22
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
I think this was my favorite episode. A lesson for us all: never let a secretary drive a John Deere Lawn Tractor through the middle of a drunken office party.
I did enjoy the liquor and delicatessen while it lasted, however.
Last edited by tmc22 (2009-09-21 15:52:35)
#15 2009-09-21 15:58:41
- Staceyboy
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
^ Just this minute finished watching it online. A surreal gore fest. Any of you out there already planning an office Christmas party be warned! 
Staceyboy
http://thetownoutside.tumblr.com
#16 2009-09-21 17:33:59
- tmc22
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
I haven't been a fan of flashbacks or fantasies, but this episode just seemed to hit it out of the ballpark. With all the period details and nuanced dialogue of a John O'Hara story. Who is the Brit who is running the office? Interesting to see him change allegiances in a sentence ot two. A couple of episodes back he confessed ignorance as to why the home office turned down a twenty year gift for doing the ad work for the creation of the to this day Madison Square Garden. In this last episode identifying with Tom Sawyer at his own funeral. A couple of lines of dialogue paint a large porttrait.
This season Don Draper has become enormously more complex. No longer cheating. An ideal parent. And now explicit what was formerly implicit. Don Draper is the greatest advertising man in America. He encourages talent. He inspires loyalty (hello Pete). He shares credit. Connie (now we know as Conrad Hilton) tracks him down because he had a long intimate conversation with Don. Something no one else in the city has ever had. Just great stuff.
Last edited by tmc22 (2009-09-21 17:34:44)
#17 2009-09-21 17:44:57
- tmc22
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
The Brit manager is 'Lane'. I think he just signed up for American Independence.
The episode in one way was a celebration of American Liberty. You come over here on July 3, 1963 and try to take over again: Our drunk secretaries will run over your foot with a John Deere tractor. The statement was there: in all of its wacky glory!
#18 2009-09-21 18:44:24
- AQG
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
I laughed hysterically at the tractor bit. Perfectly done. Did't even see it coming until the shout of "Oh Sweet Christ" or words like that. The janitors silently and calmly squeegeeing the blood from the windows were priceless.
Seriously, though, is it better to be wearing Lobbs or Greenes when an American secretary mangles one's foot with a lawn tractor?
#19 2009-09-21 19:30:38
- tmc22
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
ooooooohhhh. Now that is a question. I think only a Brit can reply. In that era Peal was still the custom shoe maker of choice. have to put them in the mix. Edward Green made the RTW that was marketed through the half dozen Brooks stores then extant. i think the kid bought the best. Lots cheaper then. He was wearing custom made Peal shoes. Lucky for him, not so expensive to replace back in the day.
During the Prohibition era there used to be a toast in the States"Let's strike a blow for Liberty!" before downing an illegal grog. Lois gave a whole new meaning to the phrase with her inebriated steering. Thanks to the New Deal era legislation the Brit kid will have to be satisfied with worker's comp. No trial lawyer for him.
#21 2009-09-21 20:14:01
- tmc22
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Re: Ultra Mad Men
Today I still think from 1938 on historians will view this as the American Century (Henry Luce's turn of phrase). It still is. Let me know when a European country elects someone named Barack Obama who graduated from Harvard Law. This is the country that accepts everyone. This is the era where we send armies everywhere.
But watch out all of you Brit ad men. this is the country that will cut you down to size.
