Product Description

Set in 1960 New York City Mad Men explores the glamorous and ego-driven "Golden Age" of advertising where everyone is selling something and nothing is ever what it seems. And no one plays the game better than Don Draper (Golden Globe - winner Jon Hamm) Madison Avenue's biggest ad man - and ladies man - in the business.System Requirements:Running Time: 600 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 031398229384 Manufacturer No: 22938

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38 in DVD
• Brand: MAD MEN - SEASON 1 (DVD MOVIE)
• Released on: 2008-07-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Widescreen, Box set, Color, Dolby
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 4
• Dimensions: .65 pounds
• Running time: 616 minutes

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Stills from Mad Men (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

excellent condition and very enjoyable!
Mad Men CD was very good, the CD was delivered in a timely manner, and
it was in very good condition and very well packaged. Thank you.

The revolutionary decade, from the viewpoint of the establishment.
Who doesn't love a good period drama? I'm certainly not such a person, so upon hearing the idea of a cable series set on the Madison Avenue advertising scene as the nation stood on the cusp of the 1960s had enormous appeal. Especially interesting is the HBO-style (indeed, this was originally pitched as an HBO series, and shot down; I'm grateful, if only because the DVD prices would be that much more severe) unvarnished presentation of the era. Moralists who romanticize this period as a haven of old-fashioned morality will be disappointed when confronted by the truth (or something like it) about contemporary attitudes.

Our main character is Don Draper (Jon Hamm, in a marvelous performance; it is surprising that he doesn't do more period work, because he's absolutely perfect for the look of the 1950s), the creative director at Sterling Cooper, a moderate-sized ad agency run by Roger Sterling (John Slattery, best known to me from "Jack & Bobby") and Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse). He and his team, most notably newcoming Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser, Angel's son Connor on "Angel"), are charged with marketing such illustrious products as cigarettes (and helping the company duck restrictions imposed by federal health agencies). Don is something of a mystery both at work and at home, where his wife Betty (January Jones, in a revelatory performance; I'd previously never thought of her as anything other than a pretty face) is living a life of quiet desperation. Through Don we see the life of a successful male executive; he's got a beautiful wife, more than one mistress on the side (proto-hippy Midge, then department store executive Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff), the only woman in the show not occupying a menial position, and she owes that to her father), and is friends with his boss Roger. Below him, Campbell and his cohorts battle for favour and advancement.

Standout performances come from Hamm in the title role, Christina Hendricks as Joan, a secretary well-versed in using her sexuality to get what she wants (she'd be running the place if she lived 40 years later), and Elisabeth Moss as Peggy, a newby secretary with professional ambitions that are well beyond what is expected of women in that era, althoug timid Peggy doesn't seem the type to overtly identify with the feminist movement.

The DVD packaging has been a point of some contention here (see many of the 1-star reviews). The original lighter-shaped box is a nifty design, though you do indeed have to watch while you close it (although the explanatory booklet in the back seems an effective shield on my set).

Madmen Review
This is probably the most well written show since I can't remember when. The acting is spectacular and truly absorbing. There are many surprises along the way, ones that you actually don't see coming for a change! All in all my favourite show on TV right now and it's going to be a very difficult show to ever beat in the future.