Jean-Paul Belmondo wears a Rolex Submariner

François Holin drives getaway cars for men who think he is a joke. In Robert Enrico's Ho! (1968), adapted from José Giovanni's 1964 novel, Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a former racing driver who left the sport after a crash killed a friend and now chauffeurs a gang that considers him a loser. When he asks to run a job himself, they refuse, so he goes alone. He is caught, escapes prison by passing himself off as a cellmate, and discovers the newspapers have invented a brilliant public enemy with his name. He starts trying to live up to the clippings. Joanna Shimkus, Enrico's Laetitia from Les Aventuriers, plays Bénédicte, the model girlfriend who keeps telling him none of it is worth anything.

The Submariner identification comes from the French site Montres de Luxe, and the site's real interest is in how the watch is worn: on a black bund strap, a cuff of leather under the case, which it calls very rare for an era when even an ordinary leather strap on a Submariner was unusual. It adds that this was very probably Belmondo's own watch, the actor being a sports-watch enthusiast with a particular taste for Rolex. The claim comes with no frame from the film, no other publication has taken it up, and nobody names a reference. The poster art, all revolver and cigarette, shows no watch at all.

Giovanni reportedly disliked what Enrico made of his novel, and Time Out later filed the picture away as a turgid effort for indulgent Belmondo fans only. The French were indulgent. They bought 1.7 million tickets.