Mickey Rourke wears an Ebel 1911

In the publicity still from Wild Orchid, Mickey Rourke crouches in sun-bleached grass in a faded denim shirt, dark glasses, a red bandana and a single hoop earring. He plays James Wheeler, the guarded, wealthy businessman of Zalman King's 1989 erotic thriller, shot in Rio de Janeiro, who pulls a young American lawyer played by Carré Otis into his world. On his forward wrist, resting on his knee, is a round gold watch on a matching gold bracelet.

The case is round, the dial a plain dark navy, and the bracelet flows straight into the lugs. There are no subdials. It is a time-only watch, the dressy three-hand version rather than a chronograph, and its shape is a close match for an Ebel 1911: that round case on an integrated link bracelet is the line's signature. The brand name is not readable in the frame, so the identification rests on the silhouette rather than the dial.

Ebel built that watch to be noticed. The company was founded in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1911 by Eugène Blum and his wife Alice Lévy, the name an acronym of Eugène Blum Et Lévy, and it launched the 1911 collection in 1986 for its seventy-fifth anniversary, naming the line after that founding year. Through the decade Ebel sold itself under the slogan "The Architects of Time," positioning itself as a luxury rival to Rolex and Omega, and it even bought a Le Corbusier villa in La Chaux-de-Fonds to make the point.