You may have noticed that Mad Men at the Movies has been absent for over a month. I'm kind of like that date Ginsberg had with the hot teacher or Betty's brunette dye job - I am dropped plot threads! Rather than giving up entirely I thought we'd discuss the season thus far with The Planet of the Apes (1968) as our rough focus / entry point.
New York ad man Don Draper reads the promotional in-theater newsletter created for "The Planet of the Apes" movies by an actual NY ad agency
For those of you with short memories, in the fifth episode of the season "The Flood" (episode 6.5) Don Draper plays hooky with his son Bobby who is feigning illness and they go to see The Planet of the Apes (1968)... twice! (This scene made me smile from ear to ear since I remember doing this as a kid in the late 70s / early 80s. Yes, they did use to let you stay and watch the movie again for free.) Roger Sterling, following Don's lead, takes his grandson to see the same movie in "The Better Half" (episode 6.9) though the results are not the same. [more...]
Though we often think of franchises as a modern experience, they've been around forever and the 60s birthed at least two major ones that refuse to die: James Bond and those damn dirty apes. Both have now been referenced multiple times on Mad Men. The original film version of The Planet of the Apes arrived without a ton of fanfare in early 1968 and quickly turned into a sensation.
Unlike most Mad Men movie reference this one came with mutliple clips and -- spoiler alert -- most of the famous twist ending was shown including its music free cut-to credits which is then paired beautifully with a reaction shot of Don Draper raising his eyebrows in 'whoa' fashion. Little Bobby is just as stunned. In some ways the choice of this scene with Charlton Heston righteously screaming to the heavens at the inhumanity of his fellow men "you maniacs. god damn you all to hell!" might seem a too on the nose. Most of the episode deals with the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination (April 4th, 1968) and the way it puts all of our characters and the city they live in on edge worrying about rights and people blowing everything up.
But then again, Apes is not exactly subtle and not everything needs to be.
Bobby: So… the humans blew up new york
Don: all of america
Bobby: SoOOO he can back to here
Don: in the future
Bobby: [letting it sink in] Jesus.[Don is clearly pleased that his son liked it]
Don: Wanna see it again
Bobby: Can we?[When we cut back to the scene Bobby notices the black usher cleaning]
Bobby: Did you see this movie?
Usher: not yet
Bobby: Don't you get to see it for free?
Usher: I do
Bobby: Its really good we're seeing it again. Everybody likes to go to the movies when they're sad
What I love most about the scene is that it gives us a rare tender moment between this very absent father and his oldest son. It's tough to say why Don Draper is so obviously pleased with his son. Is it the pride that comes with the intangible gene of "movie lover" being passed down? Is it relief that his son thinks about the world? Is it his sublimated empathy for the usher? Bobby probably isn't self-aware enough to think about why he immediately identifies the usher as sad but his reaching out here is about 1000 times less awkward and more genuine than Joan's hug to Dawn the firm's only black secretary earlier in the episode.
A few episodes later Roger Sterling's grandson visits the office with Roger's perpetually disappointed daughter Margaret. They stop to talk with Joan at the foot of the stairs where every scene seems to take place these days.
Joan: Hello Margaret. Oh he's precious. How old is he?
Roger: He's four. he's having a special day with pop-pop. We're going to the zoo and maybe the movies.
Joan: So it's just a regular work day?
Margaret: [to Roger] Don't fill him full of junk!
What Sterling fills his grandson with is the same movie about a post-apocalyptic earth where the few surviving humans are slaves and apes rule. Margaret calls her dad furiously later in the episode.
Margaret: You took a four year-old to see Planet of the Apes ?!? He's been having nightmares all night.
Roger: Hold on, hold on. He wanted to see that.
Margaret: He doesn't decide that.
Roger [searching for excuses] Don took his kid.
Margaret: [sarcastic] Don Draper, 'Father of the Year'
Roger: Margaret, honey, he loved it. Put him on, I'll do Doctor Zaius for him again he'll laugh like an idiot... "The Forbidden Zone was..."
Margaret: [not listening] We'll probably have to get rid of the dog. He's that afraid of fur!
Roger: Listen i saw The Golem when I was his age. You don't even know what scary is.
Roger is referencing either the 1915 German silent or the more widely seen 1920 prequel -- franchises were around even then! -- about a Jewish rabbi who creates a monster from clay to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution.
Roger ends the conversation joking that "he turned out fine" despite the childhood terror but we know that Roger... and by extension Don since they each took their offspring to the same scary 'The World is Not All Right!' kind of metaphor movie ... are not. The Planet of the Apes is perfect because the men of Sterling, Cooper, Draper & Pryce & Partners are self-destructive... or at least Don, Roger and Pete are. They're always blowing themselves up. God damn them. God damn them all to hell.
Much of the brilliant and unusual trajectory of Mad Men has been about the slow death of its leading men, formerly charming or at least vibrant characters. Not a literal death so much as a passing of their way of life, their moment, as well as the abrupt metamorphosis of the world around them in the tumultous 1960s. A lot of people don't seem to be enjoying this sixth season and it's easy to see why. It's depressing and heavy with death imagery from that James Mason A Star is Born suicide suggestion to the possibly crazy but interesting theories of Megan Draper as Sharon Tate (i.e. doomed to some horrific negation), to this most recent episode in which Don nearly did a Sunset Blvd in a Californian pool. But I still find the show challenging, fascinating and more cinematic than many movies even think of being.
Do you miss thinky/campy sci-fi like The Planet of the Apes? What's your take on Mad Men Season Six?