Charles Bronson wears a Heuer Autavia

Arthur Bishop kills people for money and considers it a craft. He stages each death to look like an accident, and the work pays for a lavish but solitary life: a handsome house, an art collection, classical music, and fine wine. Charles Bronson plays him in The Mechanic (1972), the second of six films he made with director Michael Winner, from a script by Lewis John Carlino. Jan-Michael Vincent is Steve McKenna, the son of one of Bishop's targets, whom Bishop takes on as a protégé.

Bishop's discipline extends to his wrists. For most of the film he wears a Heuer Autavia GMT, the reference 2446C with the red-and-blue Pepsi bezel, its extra 24-hour hand reading a second time zone; then, for a dive in Italy, he swaps it for a Rolex Submariner, each watch reserved for its proper use. Heuer's Autavia name goes back to a 1933 dashboard timer, a portmanteau of automobile and aviation, and Jack Heuer brought it to the wrist in 1962. Edouard Heuer had founded the company in Saint-Imier in 1860, and in 1972 the dial still read only Heuer, more than a decade before the TAG takeover.