Josh Hartnett wears an unidentified watch

Brian De Palma adapting James Ellroy's Black Dahlia was, on paper, the right match — two maximalists drawn to corruption, sex, and violence in mid-century Los Angeles. Josh Hartnett plays Bucky Bleichert, a boxer-turned-LAPD detective pulled into the 1947 Elizabeth Short murder case, and the 2006 film piles on the noir tropes until they buckle under their own weight. The performances are better than the reviews suggested. Hartnett in particular plays Bucky with a physical stillness that suits the period.

In this image, Hartnett kisses Hilary Swank's Madeleine Linscott, and a watch is visible on his wrist — a small, period-appropriate piece that looks right for a 1947 detective's salary. It hasn't been identified. For a film set in the late 1940s, the watch would need to be something an LAPD cop could reasonably own: a midsize dress watch, probably American-made. The prop department got the scale right. Bucky's watch is modest enough to belong to a man who boxes for extra money because police work doesn't pay well enough.