re Real-world watches
INSIGHTS
Beginning with Ian Fleming in 1953 when he wrote the novel Live and Let Die, James Bond storylines differentiated between those where Agent 007 wore a single wristwatch, and those in which this protagonist wore more than one wristwatch (and, more particularly, wristwatch type) between plot opening and close.
— One watch construct
Philosophically, a one-watch approach would arguable call for a timekeeper that would appear as appropriate for formal wear as for whatever rough-and-tumble field environment might be encountered. The 1958 B.W. Goodden rebuke of the James Bond watch choice for Dr No [page 117] spoke to the importance of casino-to-combat reliability. To the contrary, the Omega Chronometer that was relied upon throughout The World Is Not Enough was a textbook performer according to this mindset.
— Multiple- or mission-watch construct
Applications to these expositions cast a different light on James Bond, and perhaps his missions through MI6. The most extreme example of this was likely the “gold pocket watch and chain with the Bray seal” with which he was provided to enhance credibility of his cover in the 1963 thriller, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service [page 89]. But even the least attentive among movie-goers is more likely to have noticed the Rolex Submariner arc in the Goldfinger pre-title sequence.
Assessment of, if not persuasion by one approach or the other is not simply a matter of counting-up onesies and creating a list of those next to a list of “others.” Authors and movie producers are hardly immune from failing to correct continuity errors and even simple mistakes. Some watch choices and numbers have undoubtedly been subject to negotiations and even dictates of sorts with product placement partners; early utilization of the Gruen Precision was very likely a matter of availability.
And sometimes (to paraphrase a mis-quote attributed to Sigmund Freud), “a watch is just a watch” [1], as plainly seen.
SINGLE WATCHES
— 1989/ Licence to Kill
What if you found yourself thrust into a deadly mission, deprived of usual backup support — with the only the watch available to rely upon was the one that happened to be on your wrist when all hell broke loose?
That was the positioning of the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date Submariner in Licence to Kill. Its no excuses range of appearances opened with Timothy Dalton as James Bond en route to a wedding in top hat and tailcoat (although traditional etiquette purest would have eschewed wristwatches of any sort with such attire [2]). That same watch, polar opposite performance in Isthmus City, where its diver bracelet-extension no doubt came in handy over the full wetsuit worn to board Wavekrest.
— 1999/ The World Is Not Enough
This Omega Seamaster 300-meter had run the gamut before the opening credits rolled for this movie. In one key sequence, the Pierce Brosnan James Bond joined a high level meeting with M in her home office, then went straight into a high-speed boat chase down the River Thames [3]. Along that route he was forced to dive in the open-cockpit Q-Boat, and casually adjusted his necktie, still wearing his three-piece suit, while under water. That same wristwatch saw action on a snow-covered mount, in the bed of Elektra King, and a free dive incursion on a Russian submarine putting out to sea in The World Is Not Enough.
In short: This was a perfect James Bond one-wristwatch.
MULTIPLE WATCHES
— 1954/ Live and Let Die
In the early 1950s, it would not have been credible in the main to reference the same wristwatch in support of a Double-0 acting “the part of a very rich man” on page 7, and serving as time referent underwater on page 204. And Ian Fleming did not do that in Live and Let Die.
James Bond received a specialized diver’s watch as part of the gear provided to him from London [page 192]. This timekeeper was conspicuously referenced by the name “Rolex,” meaning Panerai, to differentiate it from the watch at the opening of the novel — and perhaps yet another (third) indeterminate piece associated with the “Americanization” of Our Man [pages 27-28]. This progression of wristwatch choices, then, was consistent with the story arc experienced by James Bond himself, from a more luxuriously paced arrival at what would later be known as John F Kennedy International Airport [4], to the tense countdown that ended with the demise of Mr Big.
— 1962/ Dr No
A two-watch construct, upfront care in selection philosophy, and disciplined differentiated use throughout filming was not just central to translating the James Bond character from books to this first motion picture, but setting up Agent 007 to perpetuate for an hoped blockbuster franchise for many years following.
The Gruen Precision dress watch supported a view of the personal life of James Bond à la Sean Connery, whether reflecting to any degree its reality or what he had imagined or might have wished it to be. Perhaps along the lines of the glib view of marriage that was touched upon in “Quantum of Solace” [5]. The Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner, then, sat starkly differentiated from that. Without much need to show its prowess as support for serious divers, its tool nature was unabashedly marked in service to a Geiger counter test where the industrial, if not military, radioactivity of its dial was spotlighted at one point in the plot of Dr No.
— 1964/ You Only Live Twice
The “cheap Japanese wrist-watch Tiger had provided” was a clear hallmark of the comprehensive transformation of James Bond into his cover as a local fisherman late in the plot of You Only Live Twice [202]. This would have replaced whatever wristwatch he’d consulted earlier in the novel [page 34], whether personal or provided by The Company, regardless of whether it had been a carryover of the replacement timepiece from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the action of which had concluded nine months prior [page 33].
In a 2017 contribution to The Book Collector, Fergus Fleming wrote of the declining health of his uncle during this period. “By 1963, his main concern was to finish Bond’s adventures” [6]. This gave important backdrop to an observation by David A Randall in summary of You Only Live Twice. “This is the last corrected of the novels,” and yet the “care he took with it” had remained consistent since the ritual had begun with Casino Royale [7].
— 1973/ Live and Let Die
Pairing a barely-to-market, barely-started Quartz Revolution Hamilton Pulsar P2 with a Rolex Submariner incarnation introduced circa 1969 may be the most extreme decision of the franchise (or at least through No Time to Die). The Pulsar not only marked the big screen debut of Roger Moore as Agent 007, but sparked new expectations for all James Bond watches to follow. As the actor himself wrote during filming, “Being Bond’s watch it is not ordinary timepiece …” [8]. Notwithstanding, this was not the gadget-watch in Live and Let Die, nor, for that matter, any sort of gadget watch at all.
Unlike other multiples and mission watches highlighted on this page, the Submariner was revealed to have its own extraordinary features, courtesy of Q Branch, thus complementing and perhaps even one-upping the (merely) real-world Hamilton.
— Dell Deaton
Last updated: March 19, 2024
Published: February 6, 2024
OFF-SITE REFERENCES
- “Freud and his Cigars”
Freud Museum London (accessed February 6, 2024). - “Morning Wear Guide”
December 10, 2018 / Gentleman’s Gazette (accessed February 4, 2024). - “Day 11: Filming the James Bond 007 Boat Chase from TWINE Pierce Brosnan in the Q Boat on the Thames”
April 19, 1999 / bondpix (via YouTube, accessed February 6, 2024). - “Where Was Idlewild Airport, and Why Was It Called That?”
January 12, 2012 / New-York Historical Society Museum & Library (accessed February 7, 2024). - “Quantum of Solace”
May 1959 / Ian Fleming / Cosmopolitan, pages 90 and 92 (Hearst Corporation: New York). - “Ian Fleming and ‘The Book Collector'”
Spring 2017 / Fergus Fleming / The Book Collector, page 63 (The Collector Limited: London). - “Part III: James Bond-007”
David A Randall / Lilly Library Publication Number XII: The Ian Fleming Collection of 19th-20th Century Source Material Concerning Western Civilization together with the Originals of the James Bond-007 Tales (Indiana University: Bloomington). - “B Day 75”
1973 / Roger Moore / Roger Moore’s James Bond Diary, page 164 (Fawcett Publications: Greenwich, Connecticut).