Johnny Depp wears an Alsta

The red Chevy convertible is doing something close to ninety through the Nevada desert, and Raoul Duke has both hands on the wheel. He is in a bucket hat and aviators with a cigarette holder clamped in his teeth and a yellow floral Acapulco shirt, Dr. Gonzo slumped beside him. On his left wrist, gripping the top of the steering wheel, is a round steel dive watch: black dial, a fluted rotating bezel that catches the desert light, on a perforated black leather rally strap riveted at the lugs. It is the kind of watch you buy to do a job, not to be seen wearing, which is exactly why it belongs on this wrist.

To play Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp moved into Thompson's basement in Woody Creek, Colorado for months. He studied the walk, the clipped speech, the cigarette holder, the habit of cutting Wild Turkey with grapefruit juice. Thompson shaved Depp's head himself to match his own and handed over assorted articles of his own clothing and accessories for the role, from a patchwork jacket to the cigarette holder. Whether the watch came from that same pile is the question every collector eventually asks, and the honest answer is that nobody has confirmed it. If it did, this would be one of the rare cases of an actor wearing the real man's own watch on screen.

The watch is an Alsta, a small British marque whose dive output in the late 1960s and 1970s ran to two families: the round-cased Nautoscaph and the cushion-cased Superautomatic, the latter the watch Richard Dreyfuss wore as Hooper in Jaws. Which Alsta sits on Duke's wrist is disputed. The case in the desert frame is round, which leans toward the Nautoscaph, while the brand's own history files the Fear and Loathing appearance under the Superautomatic, so the maker and the watch's admirers cannot agree on which of Alsta's models Raoul Duke wore. The dial text never resolves on screen, almost too fitting for a film narrated by a man you cannot trust.

Terry Gilliam directed the adaptation, Tony Grisoni co-wrote it, and Benicio del Toro put on forty pounds to play Gonzo. The film lost money on release and found its audience years later, which is the Thompson way.