Charles Martin Smith wears a Tradition

Oscar Wallace is the man who actually beats Al Capone. While Costner's Ness kicks down doors and Sean Connery's Malone teaches him how Chicago works, Charles Martin Smith's bookkeeper figures out that you don't need guns when you have tax code. De Palma's The Untouchables (1987) makes Wallace the least glamorous member of the team, and his Tradition watch reinforces it.

Tradition was a house brand sold through Sears, Roebuck and Co., Swiss movements in American catalog cases, the kind of watch you would order from the same place you bought your washing machine. On a Treasury Department accountant in Prohibition-era Chicago, it reads as the watch of a man who buys quality but doesn't spend foolishly. Costner's Ness wears a Bulova President in the same film, more expensive, more polished, the watch of the man who gets the credit. Wallace wears a Sears watch and does the actual work.