Alec Baldwin wears a Rolex Day-Date

Blake holds up the watch and tells the room it costs more than their car. Then he holds it up again. Alec Baldwin plays Blake in one scene in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), an appearance that opens the film, and the gold Rolex Day-Date on his wrist is the second thing you notice. The watch is the point.

James Foley directed, David Mamet adapted his own Pulitzer-winning 1983 play, and Blake does not appear in the original play at all. New Line Cinema asked Mamet to add the character. He arrived, did his speech, and left. The phrase Always Be Closing had not entered the language yet. By the time the film ended, it had.

The Rolex Day-Date has been in continuous production since 1956, available only in gold or platinum, never in stainless steel. The day of the week, spelled out in full at 12 o'clock, sets it apart from everything else Rolex makes. In his hands, it is not decoration. He holds it up because the men in the room cannot afford one.

When Propstore auctioned the original prop in London in 2023, the listing confirmed it was a production replica of a Rolex Day-Date, with a faux gold chain-link band and a ribbed case. The prop master, Robert Griffon, provided a letter of authenticity. The watch was never functional. In the scene, it works perfectly.