Odd part of all this is that the production company does an exquisite job on so many facets of the scene, then punts it altogether with the most New York of all details, the Subway. WIth the real thing, completely restored and germane to the period available through the Transit Museum, they use a concocted set that only vaguely looks like a 1960's subway car.
5
Enjoyed the first season, despite the gratuitous filthy language. Second season, they've increased the filth so the point that it interrupts the dialogue. People did not use that kind of language in the fifties, at least not in public. It has become so prevalent on the show that I've quit watching it. At 69 years old, with ten years in the army and 30 years of factory work, I have never heard anyone use vulgarity to the degree that Mrs. Maisel and cast do.
9
Joel’s crude and unsophisticated parents are depicted perfectly. The writers must have known lots of my parents first generation relatives!
10
I only know the 1950s from movies and books. It appears the only people who enjoyed that decade lived in Manhattan. The city was an explosion of new worlds in so many industries, and social mores were more accepting. Compared to the rest of the country dealing with suburban monotony, social conventions, and paltry economic growth.
3
I’ve tried to like this awful show, but just can’t. Glad that so many people enjoy it.
3
Mark, I’m with you. I gave this show a chance. My family is from the place, the era, etc. And all I wanted to yell was “Please! Shut up!!” I’m glad others are loving it. To each his own.
1
I have just finished binge watching this remarkable series.Only Hollywood would cast a Gentile to play a Jewish comic. Yet they are correct. The female lead and her manager are brilliant.Worthy of all the accolades and awards to date. I anxiously await season three. Thank you Amazing Amazon.
15
Despite some of the show's inaccuracies both historical and technical (bar tender rinsing glasses in a waterless sink, a VU meter motionless while a reel-to-reel deck plays a song, and a slew of other cute ones), the show is a cinematic marvel. It is practically a portal through a time machine.
Its production values stood the hair on my back many times, leaving me almost breathless. It is very hard to make a series at such a level of quality and none of that is lost on some people.
The deal breaker became the Susie Myerson character's relentless foul mouth as the second season progressed, not unlike the way some contemporary comics believe they can't get a laugh without swearing, persistent scat humor or constant references to reproductive anatomy.
Near the end of the 2nd season, I literally turned off the audio and tried to enjoy the cinematic aspects that drew me to the series in the first place. But, at the rate this show is going, the producers should consider skipping directly to the Warhol era for the entire 3rd season and train a camera on a constantly flushing toilet with echoes of curses, wild jazz and Lenny Bruce monologues.
5
@Newy
One of the best TV programs ever, but yes it is marred by the language. Someone somewhere said that the character was saying things in pubic in today's language to call attention to what could not have been said in the 1950s. Lenny Bruce paid dearly for using language like that. However it was really not necessary to use language like that in the mouths of people far removed from the nightclub scene to get the point across.
8
When I heard the song “Chicken Fat,” I was transported back to my elementary school days when we exercised to the song in PE! The entire series was perfection. Beautiful, funny, poignant, the show did not miss a beat Bravo to every single person involved.
17
I'm proud my synagogue was chosen the families' synagogue for the High Holy Days in season 1. It looks exactly the same today.
3
Did they really dress that well back then? I mean everyone, not just the family of a Columbia professor. The street scenes - even the presumably destitute dress better than today’s middle-class tourist. Did people have a few really nice clothes compared to today’s lots of cheap T-shirt’s and sports attire?
13
Yes.
38
B. Altman was my go to store. I worked as a lingerie designer in the neighborhood.I had my first charge account there. And the card was pink. Even though the set is not nearly as big as the 1st floor actually was, I adore the vibe. Don’t remember a coat checkroom, and there was a huge escalator in the middle of the store, there were wonderful women who wrapped holiday presents under the escalator, and they made all bows by hand. It was a free service.
22
Of course I love that show. I’m 77 years old and I remember all of the wonderful things that the show depicts. However… Louis Armstrong ‘s “”what a wonderful world” was released in 1967. I know some of us are having fun finding mistakes but I really wasn’t looking for any when I was startled buy this song.
8
The Subway sign should have said LL not L. I grew up on the line and used it to get to work for years when I worked at the WTC.
2
@NYHUGUENOT It wasn't a picture from the show but a picture of the background extras walking to the set. There's another picture of the extras in the holding area looking at our iphones. Definitely, not 1959. lol.
2
Is anyone else bothered by anachronistic music selections? In Season I , Streisand’s rendition of “Happy Day’s Are Here Again” brings in the new year, 1956.
The song was published in 1929, but Babs didn’t cut it until 1963.
10
@Adam Man Continuity errors are nothing new in movies or TV. I was thoroughly enjoying "Inside Llewyn Davis" until Oscar Isaac's main character gets off a downtown No. 1 train on the uptown side. But, after rolling my eyes, I went right back to enjoying it.
1
Thank you Miss Gray Lady. A very nice feature with absolutely fabulous photography.
16
Mrs. Maisel portrays a shiny, bright 1950s which is influenced by the films and advertising of the period. The real 1950s was much grittier. In New York, incinerators left a layer of actual grit on in windowsills and everything else. And they all smoked; cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke hung in a fog at the ceiling. But people did dress up to go out for even modest errands and everyone wore hats. The dialog is in no way contemporary to the 50s, but that's OK, this is fiction after all.
39
Too much knit picking.The scenes are beautifully photographed and the colors are beautiful. I love seeing the styles of the 50s and early 60s. I am watching the first season a second time, which I rarely do, and still enjoying it. Not everything has to be perfect to be appreciated.
32
@Zoned I agree, tiny bits of missing continuity don't really matter when the art direction is so spectacular. The sets, costumes even for the men's clothes are off the hook!
9
Completely disagree. The anachronisms stick out so badly you lose the rest of the story.
For the fun of it, I counted six in an episode last night. I’m sure there were more.
2
@Zoned Nits get picked. Knits get pulled. :-)
9
I love this show and they do indeed evoke the era marvelously. BUT, they miss big time in two related respects. I grew up in Mrs. Maisel's Upper West Side neighborhood in the '50s, on 106th and Riverside. (She lives on 110th on or near Riverside.) It was NOT the upscale neighborhood depicted. It was very upscale in the 1910s to 30s, and it is today. But in the 50s, while Riverside Drive was very nice, the remaining neighborhood was replete with tenements, street crime, and gangs -- the neighborhood of West Side Story. Also, pretty much nobody owned his own apartment in New York. People rented; even wealthy people who themselves owned real estate. So I find these anachronisms a bit jarring, but I love the show.
24
@amoss3, I too grew up in the '50s at 106th and Riverside: 315 W. 106th street, in fact. You and I must have been neighbors!
4
In one of the episodes in season two, the subject of the apartment comes up. It’s owned by Columbia—faculty housing.
11
@amoss3 West Side Story was set in Hell's Kitchen. There were bits of the Upper West Side that were tony but you are right now all of it was.
1
I was an extra on the show, too. I can't attest to the street signs, but to fill those dresses correctly, we did wear cone bras.
22
Is the woman on the bench in the top picture holding a cell phone?? I haven't done much research, but that may not be a period piece.
3
@Steve M
Reading. Too big to be a cell phone.
@Steve M It is a cell phone, but all pics are behind-the-scene images not screen grabs from the show.
11
As a child of the 40's and 50's from a Jewish family, I love the neurotic details. When Midge's mother takes to bed with an ice bag pressed to her head, they had me. My mother, it seemed spent half her days in bed with an ice bag. My brother and I plotted to bury her with an ice bag, but she thwarted our plans by being cremated. Not growing up in New York (but nearby Connecticut) the details are not as obvious. But, then again, Ruby Foo's was one of my mother's go-to restaurants when she and her girlfriends escaped to see a Broadway play. And, of course, there's Mrs. Maisel who is absolutely "marvelous" as the hyper-kinetic, female Jewish avenger to the WASP male culture of Mad Men, and to her husband Joel as well.
27
@Paul Wortman
I love your comments about your late mother! And I laugh whenever I see someone wearing baggy clothes, remembering Mrs. Maisel's mom, saying in Season 1,
"That's not slimming!" Did your mother make comments like that?
My second favorite Jewish mother is Beverly on The Goldbergs!
7
Two jarring anachronisms from season 1:
- The TAXI roof signs look late ‘60s, not ‘50s.
- Ditto for the sidewalk phone booths.
For a show that tries so hard, some obvious flubs.
Did anyone notice the writing in S2 E1 is way below the high standard set in S1?
6
what about the butcher shop where they shop
did anyone notice it sells ham and pork?
check out the signs on the store window.
Even most reform jews would not buy their meat there.
In the very first episode her mother brags to the butcher
that the Rabbi is coming to their house for dinner...really!
6
I quit watching this show because it is somebody's fantasy of the late 50's. The colors are super bright and everybody looks great, even in those fashions. Every episode is loaded with anachronisms, both in fashion and speech. Maybe I was spoiled by Mad Men.
11
Attention to detail ? I was in NYC W village in the 50s and 60s. I never saw shinning cars like that. Dents, missing bumpers, rusted sides, etc were the norm. More more like the ones we see in Cuba today!
29
I applaud the designers' attention to detail, but it took me all of ten seconds to spot an anachronistic "wheelchair handicapped" symbol in the subway entrance pictured in this article. That symbol only came into use in 1968!
10
that wasn't a scene from the show. Notice the food cart serves halal and the speed limit signs are modern as well as the subway entrance signage. The focus of the picture I think is on the extras walking to the set.
24
@EL I don't recall Halal Food Carts in the 1950's either.
1
@Eric Eitreim The Halal cart was not in the show itself. The photo in the article was showing the street setting they used and then altered in appearance with lighting taking things out, putting things in to get to what appears on the screen when the viewer watches it. The street carts back then were almost all hot dog carts, some of them with wooden wheels. I know this as I grew up in the business -my father and his partner made the first stainless steel hot dog carts...company was Admar. His name was Ed Beller.
12
Although I enjoy the show, particularly its spunky, sassy and sexy lead, one facet of the production jars me frequently. The characters use way too much modern slang and utter profanities which were very rare in that era, and certainly not spouted by women. Given the attention to detail lauded in this piece, this flaw stands out even more.
40
I get it,and notice it too, but just as there is a great deal of choreographed action bordering on musical comedy staging, it is not a documentary, nor a museum piece. It’s a concession to the modern audience- to immerse the characters who are portrayed in the past, with the immediacy of modern idiom.
21
I beg to differ! I was a child in 1960s NYC whose mother cursed like a sailor. And Joan Rivers, said to be one of the inspirations for the main character, also did.
29
And why in one of the early episodes, did Midge throw out the term “pantyhose” to a group of women—pantyhose first appeared in department stores in 1959.
9