They could have called it a stage or a studio, but the term they prefer is “the hangar.” Why not? Handily adjacent to Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios lot is a cavernous storage shed now used for housing a key component of ABC’s new series, “Pan Am”: the jet plane.
That is, the life-size mock-up of a jet plane’s passenger compartment. Mounted on a platform 5 feet off the concrete floor is the “fuselage” (no wings or tail) of the show’s proud Boeing 707 whose interior, in contrast to the raw shell of this plane-length tube, is designed in period-perfect detail that harkens back to the early 1960s — the dawning era of commercial jet flight when the luxury airline Pan American World Airways flourished and when “Pan Am” takes place.
| On TV |
| ‘Pan Am’ |
| When: 10 p.m. Sunday |
| Channel: ABC |
Two dozen “passengers” (the male extras crisp in their business suits, which is how men clad themselves for air travel in those days) are queued to enter the fuselage’s lopped-off aft to populate the next shot.
Also ready to board: the stewardesses. Played by Christina Ricci, Kelli Garner, Karine Vanasse and Margot Robbie, they, of course, are the real stars of “Pan Am.”
Debuting Sunday at 10 p.m. EDT, “Pan Am” is a globe-spanning melodrama set in the Kennedy presidency, with all its romance, glamour and excitement for a new, ascendant age (plus a bit of the cloak-and-dagger: one of the stewardesses is drafted by the government to be a spy).
“I had an image for the first episode of the show,” says Thomas Schlamme, an executive producer who also directed the premiere. “The stewardesses’ high heels clicking on the tarmac, with a little girl watching from the gate with admiration.”
Look for something like that in the premiere.
Schlamme says he knew the series would be received with misgivings that it was somehow sexist. As expected, early voices have been raised that “Pan Am” perpetuates pre-feminist stereotypes.
“I want to turn the stereotype on its head,” he says. “These stewardesses were really a fascinating group of people.”
And, befitting a producer of past series such as “Jack & Bobby” and “The West Wing,” Schlamme adds that he wants to infuse “Pan Am” with an element of patriotism, as if to say: “This is what we were able to do in America — and we still can.”
