Kevin Spacey wears a Bulova Surf King

Jack Vincennes is the vainest man in L.A. Confidential, and that is saying something in a movie about 1953 Los Angeles. Kevin Spacey plays him as the celebrity narcotics cop, the one who moonlights as technical adviser on Badge of Honor, a Dragnet-style TV show, and tips off the Hush-Hush tabloid man Sid Hudgens so the busts land in front of a camera. He dresses like a movie star because some part of him believes he is one. So what is he wearing?

What is on it is a Bulova Surf King: stainless case, a clean white dial with nothing on it but a stylized 12 and a sub-seconds register, on a brown lizard-grain expansion band. Modest, sharp, exactly the watch a man this conscious of his image would pick. There is just one problem, and BAMF Style is the one who caught it. The Surf King was made around 1963 to 1965. The film is set in the spring of 1953. The most appearance-obsessed character in the picture is wearing a watch that would not exist for another decade.

Guy Pearce's straight-arrow Ed Exley, meanwhile, gets a Rolex Bubbleback that could actually have existed in 1953. The show pony gets the prop the costume department had to borrow from the future. As the BAMF Style writer put it, you could argue Vincennes is ahead of his time - but wow.