Gregory Hines wears an unidentified watch

The Cotton Club was Harlem's most famous nightclub during Prohibition, and its central contradiction was that Black performers entertained a white-only audience. Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 film uses this arrangement as a backdrop for parallel stories — Richard Gere as a white musician tangled up with the mob, Gregory Hines as Sandman Williams, a tap dancer working his way up through the club's hierarchy. Bob Hoskins plays Owney Madden, the gangster who ran the real Cotton Club. Coppola's production was nearly as chaotic as the era: the budget spiraled, the script was rewritten constantly, and the film was not a commercial success, though it has aged better than its reputation suggests.

In this bar scene, Sandman raises a glass with friends, all of them in period suits and hats. A gold rectangular watch is visible on the wrist — a deco-style piece with a long case on what appears to be a leather strap. It fits the 1930s setting. The watch has not been identified, though art deco watches from that period were typically made by brands like Gruen, Bulova, and Hamilton, with elongated rectangular cases in gold-filled metal.