Charles Bronson wears a Longines Flagship

Before Death Wish made him a household name in America, Charles Bronson was a bigger draw in Europe than he ever was at home, and in 1968 he made Farewell, Friend, known in France as Adieu l'ami, for the director Jean Herman. He and Alain Delon play former Foreign Legionnaires who end up sealed inside a corporate building over a long holiday weekend, working a safe in the basement while the offices above them sit empty. Bronson is Franz Propp, the blunt, watchful counterweight to Delon's cooler operator.

The watch turns up in a single clean close-up: a round, polished steel case on Bronson's wrist, a silver dial with applied baton markers and slim hands, no date. There seems to be printed script low on the dial, the cursive style Longines favored on its dress watches of the period, and that is the basis for calling this a Longines Flagship. It is only that, a basis. The brand on the dial does not resolve in the frame, no published source identifies the watch, and the case and dial would fit any number of mid-century dress watches. The Flagship attribution is a fair guess about a watch we can see clearly and name only tentatively.