MM@M: Peyton Place (From Big Screen to Small)

Previously on Mad Men @ the Movies: 4.1 Live From Times Square 4.2 Sixties Sweethearts 4.3 Catherine Deneuve & Gamera, 4.4 Jean Seberg, 4.5 Hayley Mills & David McCallum, 4.6 Chaplin the Sad Clown 4.7 "No Bad Seats"

freelance creative Joey and name-dropping Harry discuss Peyton Place

Episode 4.8 "The Summer Man"
In yesterday's episode, Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) and Joan (Christina Hendricks) have a difficult showdown with Joey (Matt Long) the freelancer, another example of the show's study of sexism in the workplace. Joan turns on Peggy, despite Peggy's efforts to help. Joan is still in her downward spiral, less powerful in the office, helpless at home, and continually obsessing over Vietnam. Meanwhile, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) finally pulls himself out of his spiral. After last week's instant classic episode, which was very tightly focused, this was a rather uncharacteristic episode with prolonged narration from Don and a jumble of different scenes that felt like transitions away from old storylines.

<--- Mia Farrow and Ryan O'Neal in Peyton Place.

There were several cultural references in this episode such as Margaret Mead, Aesop's Fables, Life Magazine, Ray Charles but the closest we came to movies were two properties that had been or were to become movies. Broadway sensation The Odd Couple was cited with the classic "Are you an Oscar or a Felix?" question, but it would be another few years before that comedy transferred to the big screen. In another scene Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) tried to convince troublesome Joey to audition for a role opposite Ryan O'Neal on "Peyton Place" (1964) because he was so small screen handsome. Joey, unbeknownst to Harry, misinterpreted this as a gay come on.

Ryan O'Neal is a familiar name to anyone who lived through the 1970s when his fame was at its peak but in 1965 he hadn't yet made the jump from small to big screen. Peyton Place had just made the opposite journey. The original film adaptation of the novel (my review) was a Best Picture nominee in 1957 -- one of Oscar's most honored losers actually with 9 nominations and 0 wins -- but it became a series in 1964 catapulting both Ryan O'Neal and Mia Farrow into A List movie stardom once they moved on.

Clip. Mia is heavily featured. Ryan shows up until the 2:36 mark.

Have you seen either version?

The only connection that cropped up in my head with the movie version of Peyton Place and this episode is that Constance McKenzie (Lana Turner) is one (enjoyably) frosty bitch and Mad Men loves that type... though Betty softened beautifully in this episode just as Joan pulled her icy armor closer.
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The Men Who Stare at Links

Streep Tease An evening of famous Meryl Streep monologues performed by men this Saturday, September 5th! You Los Angelenos better be going to this. I want to hear everything. Someone buy me a ticket. And a plane ticket!
The Big Picture Matt Damon getting a lifetime achievement prize? He's 38! Does that make 40 the new 70 instead of the new 30?
The Auteurs Daily asks the question I've been asking myself silently: How is Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon German enough to be Germany's official Oscar submission this year?
Awards Daily shares the BFCA's best rated films as a preview for the Oscar race. They fail to mention that the BFCA's "scores" throughout the year don't usually end up directly correlating with their "Best Picture" field. They'll ditch high rated films if they don't think they can score big Oscar nods, just watch.

Kenneth in the (212) continues his one man crusade to remind people that Ryan O'Neal was the "Brad Pitt of the 70s"
My New Plaid Pants finally forgives David Fincher for Benjamin Button
Movie|Line on True Blood's breakout blonde, Alexander Skarsgård. Do you think the producers of Thor are regretting their casting decision these days? (I personally lost all interest in that Norse God superhero movie when they passed him by.)

And finally, our long (mostly) lost Ewan McGregor back in the lead (yay!) for a movie that probably won't suck (The Men Who Stare at Goats) with an exceptional cast (on paper). Feel free to rejoice but only parenthetically since... who knows, really?



Be excited now or sensibly wait until November 6th to do so. Your choice.

I feel it's worth noting that the movie was directed by George Clooney's extremely less famous frequent partner-in-crime and two time Oscar nominee Grant Henslov (pictured left) who writes, acts, directs and produces... and supposedly even forked over the money for Clooney's first professional headshots 27 years ago. Let's hear it for Grant and for all the talented multi-hyphenates out there that make their movie star friends look even more fantastic than they already naturally do.

Farrah Fawcett, 1947-2009 (RIP)

Somewhere you can hear Charlie's disembodied voice weeping for an Angel passing. I mean that in the kindest non-snarkiest way in case anyone misreads. If you lived through the 70s or 80s you will undoubtedly have at least a small place in your heart for the seminal Charlie's Angels cast and probably Farrah Fawcett in particular. She got the most mileage from the show, career wise, probably by exiting it so very quickly. Smart girl. I preferred Jaclyn Smith as a child and then Cheryl Ladd but now in retrospect I'm totally a Kate Jackson man. Yet through it all, personal preferences aside, it was Farrah who emerged as the true superstar among them.


She died this morning at 62, losing her long battle with cancer.

Farrah provided me with my first fully conscious ideas about the divide between TV stars and Movie Stars: TV stars were part of the fabric of every day life, movie stars were more godlike, unattainable celebrities for the special occasions. TV stars were famous for the character they played, movie stars for playing themselves. Etcetera. The divide was much clearer before, say, the 90s. But I remember feeling sort of weirdly proud of her when she was "promoted" to movies very very briefly for Extremities (1986) --which I didn't even see! -- after people suddenly realized she could act after her "deglam" abused wife role in The Burning Bed, a major television event in 1984. Farrah was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Emmy for the Bed role, arguably the peak of her career, though she had amazing capacity for staying famous.

Rest in peace, Farrah.

Our hearts go out to her family and especially to Ryan O'Neal her life partner for the past three decades, himself a 70s superstar. They had that in common though Ryan's fame was from the other side of the divide. He hasn't been a major movie presence since the early 80s but he was a true A Lister in the 70s as Barbra Streisand's two-time sparring partner (What's Up Doc? and The Main Event), Peter Bogdanovich's preferred muse (Paper Moon, Nickelodeon) and star of the Oscar Best Picture nominees Love Story and Barry Lyndon.