Mid-century modern homes have been part of the American visual landscape ever since the design philosophy and aesthetic took root after World War II. The unique style began appearing in popular culture early on, used in movies and on TV to help establish characters’ socioeconomic class, style, and taste. Mid-Mod design continues to be used in set design to communicate a sense of time and place, sometimes so central to the storytelling that “Mid-Century Modern” almost becomes a character in itself.
Mid-Century Modern in Real Time
The fashions, styles, and looks that define any decade in the popular imagination never begin at midnight on the first day of the first year of that period, and mid-century modern is no exception. Homeowners and tastemakers did not throw out their traditional furniture on New Year’s Day 1950. Instead, the latest looks and trends made their way into modern homes slowly but surely. All That Heaven Allows, Pillow Talk, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Brady Bunch are movies and TV shows that over a mere 15 years let viewers see MCM design as it evolved and flourished.
The living room in All That Heaven Allows (1955) illustrates the mid-century modern effect on more traditional set design. In a 2002 homage, Far from Heaven, a 1957 housewife gives a tour of her modern home. Bottom Photo Credit: Sweet Sunday Mornings (Flickr)
A lush technicolor melodrama and one of the biggest hits of 1955, All That Heaven Allows, stars Jane Wyman as an upper-class widow in New England. Her colonial home has the expected antiques and traditional art, but in the living room, the federal-style fireplace mantle is surrounded by a wall of gold-veined mirrored glass. The coffee table is large and low, with a mirrored top, and the sofa and upholstered chairs are streamlined and modern. This movie is also stylistically interesting because of the homage/remake, Far from Heaven, almost 50 years after (more on that, later!).
In Pillow Talk (1959), Rock Hudson’s and Doris Day’s apartments are mid-century modern in style and demonstrate strict distinctions between male and female spaces.
In Pillow Talk (1959), mid-century modern is in full swing and, interestingly, given the “new thinking” that the aesthetic ostensibly represents, conventional “masculine” and “feminine” norms are emphatically stated and reinforced by how the filmmakers used the style.
Rock Hudson’s bachelor pad is all-in on mid-century modern, with its exposed brick wall, abstract and African art, long and low coffee table, and chunky club chair. All browns, tans, and earth tones, it’s almost aggressively masculine. Likewise, Doris Day’s modern, sleek career girl’s apartment and accompanying furniture are rosy red, pink, and white, and stereotypically feminine.
The Dick Van Dyke Show’s decidedly modern early 1960s living room. Photo Credit: Dailymotion
The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 to 1966) features the home of a young couple who want little to do with the houses they grew up in.
Rob and Laura Petrie, played by Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, live in a New York City suburb, New Rochelle, in a brand-new, single-story ranch. All the furniture is long, and low, with accompanying contemporary accessories, art, lighting, and more. The set design signals a couple that created their home from scratch, starting new in every way as they became more affluent, eager to live a thoroughly modern life in a thoroughly modern style. Other societal changes featured on the show included Mary Tyler Moore in slacks and capri pants (which, at the time) elicited shocked comments in the press!
The Brady Bunch (1969-1974) featured perhaps the most iconic staircase in TV history. Photo Credit: TheMLS.com
No TV home demonstrates mid-century modern’s segue into “Mod” more vividly than The Brady Bunch (1969 to 1974). The Brady family’s spacious living room with its soaring cathedral ceiling – which is just as famously known for being impossible to exist inside the real-life structure that was used for the opening credits – features a delightfully “groovy” almost completely open staircase, situated underneath colorful Mondrian-style paneling.
Mid-Century Modern as Character
Far from Heaven (2002), Mad Men (2007 to 2015), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017 to 2023), and Don’t Worry Darling (2022) are examples of mid-century modern as a plot device in more current cinema and television.
Set in 1957, Far from Heaven is not so much a remake as it is a rethinking of All That Heaven Allows. Julianne Moore plays Cathy Whitaker, a New England housewife meticulously curating a stylish, brand-new mid-century modern home. In this movie, though, the open-mindedness and forward-thinking represented by Cathy’s embrace of the latest styles in design and décor serve in contrast to the very conventional social and cultural thinking of the time that she confronts.
In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, while the apartments are formal and traditional, much of the furniture and accessories are decidedly mid-century modern. Photo Credit: House of Hipsters
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2018 to 2023) stars Rachel Bresnahan as Midge Maisel, a young, upper-class woman trying to break into show business as a rare female comedian. It too has a connection with All That Heaven Allows in that it takes place in roughly the same time period, 1958 through 1963, and the interiors, just like in that home, are largely very traditional spaces and floor plans, but with more simply designed and more functional furniture than those from an earlier period that may have featured antiques or more traditional styles in their set design.
Mad Men (2007 to 2015) was about freewheeling advertising executives and covered the years 1960 through the early 70s. Highly acclaimed, it sparked similar period dramas from other networks, but none had the staying power of Mad Men. Through exceptional storytelling layered over a backdrop of significant social-political events of that era, Mad Men became a real part of the public consciousness – and helped drive the popularity of mid-century modern design to even higher peaks.
The Drapers entertain in their ultra-modern New York penthouse in Mad Men. Photo Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.
In the first few seasons, ad exec Don Draper and his wife, Betty, played by John Hamm and January Jones, lived in a colonial in the New York suburbs. However, after Don and Betty’s split in season three, Don and his new wife, Megan, played by Jessica Paré, occupied the quintessential New York City post-war, glass high-rise of the era. A central Mid-Mod design feature of the home was its on-trend sunken conversation pit in the living room, accentuated in one scene as the new Mrs. Draper stepped down onto the seat of their sleek new sectional – both a cocktail and cigarette in hand.
The makers of Don’t Worry Darling, intentionally set ambiguously in “the 1950s,” designed the sets with pieces from that era through the early 1970s. Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
The most recent high-profile film to feature mid-century modern in its storytelling was 2023’s Don’t Worry Darling, a mystery/thriller that takes place in “the 1950s.” The highly stylized set design included furniture, fabric, and accessories from a wide range of periods, though, including a few from the early 1970s that only the most discerning viewer would spot. The makers’ intentions were to create a world that represented “modern” living and, at the same time, strict conformity to social norms.
Mid-Century Modern in Modern Life
Mid-century modern design has solidified its status as more than just an aesthetic choice. On film or in reality, the style can’t help but make a statement. Whether to underscore traditional values or represent challenges to societal conventions, Mid-Mod has been effectively used to captivate audiences and shape storytelling. As its unabated popularity continues, one thing remains clear: mid-century modern isn’t just a design choice; it’s a narrative force unto itself, in popular culture and real life.
