Michael Caine wears an IWC Ingenieur

Alfie Elkins drives, charms, and explains himself straight into the camera. Michael Caine plays him in Lewis Gilbert's Alfie (1966), adapted by Bill Naughton from his own 1963 play, as a Cockney womanizer who breaks the fourth wall to justify each maneuver and then makes the next one anyway. Sonny Rollins supplied the jazz score. The film earned five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, a Best Actor nomination for Caine, and Best Supporting Actress for Vivien Merchant; Shelley Winters, Julia Foster, and Jane Asher are among the women who pass through Alfie's orbit.

The watch on Caine's wrist is a thick steel piece with a black dial, and close inspection of the frames has identified it as an IWC Ingenieur, reference 666 AD: the magnetically shielded automatic with a date window, carried on the distinctive beads-of-rice bracelet that Gay Freres made. In the period portrait of Caine resting his chin on his fist, the granular center links of that bracelet are plainly visible below the cuff, next to the gold ring he wears on the same hand. It is an engineer's instrument by design and by name.