Joanna Cassidy wears a Bulova

Robert Zemeckis set Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1947 Los Angeles, then spent the better part of two years marrying live actors to hand-drawn cartoons frame by frame, a technical grind that makes it easy to forget how many of the people on screen are flesh and blood. Joanna Cassidy is one of them. She plays Dolores, Eddie Valiant's girlfriend, who works the bar and carries herself as the most level-headed adult in a city overrun by toons. Watch enthusiasts have long wanted the watch on her wrist to be a Bulova, and the bare facts make that tempting: Bulova built a civilian model called the Squadron in the late 1940s, a 17-jewel rose-gold-filled dress piece with a small-seconds subdial, which would sit comfortably in a story set in 1947. If the watch really is a Squadron, it would be that rare bit of screen costuming that is period-correct rather than anachronistic. The trouble is that the identification rests on a single untrusted source, with no clear still and no credible documentation to back it up, so for now it stays at the brand level and no further. There is a small irony in all this. Cassidy is far better known for another wristwatch-free role from the same decade, the replicant Zhora in Blade Runner, and here she is again, the human keeping time among the unreal.