Paul Newman wears an unidentified watch

Paul Newman plays Doug Roberts in The Towering Inferno, the architect of a 138-story San Francisco skyscraper who discovers on the night of its grand opening that the builders cut corners on the electrical system. John Guillermin directed this 1974 disaster film, which combined two studios and two stars by pairing Newman with Steve McQueen, who plays the fire chief trying to save the guests trapped on the top floors. The fire starts small and spreads fast, trapping the wealthy and powerful at a party in the sky while firefighters struggle to reach them. Newman plays Roberts as a man watching his masterpiece become a death trap, guilty about the compromises he did not catch and desperate to help get people out. The film is long and full of melodrama, but the fire sequences still work. His watch has not been identified.