Richard Attenborough wears an Omega Speedmaster

Guns at Batasi (1964) confines a handful of British soldiers to their base in an unnamed, newly independent African state while a coup runs its course outside the wire. John Guillermin directed; Jack Hawkins plays Colonel Deal, and Mia Farrow, who replaced Britt Ekland partway through production, plays Karen Eriksson. The film belongs to Richard Attenborough's Regimental Sergeant Major Lauderdale, a parade-ground martinet who runs the sergeants' mess by the book and holds his composure until the very end of the picture. The performance won Attenborough the BAFTA for Best British Actor at the 18th awards, a citation he shared with his work in Seance on a Wet Afternoon the same year.

The watch on Lauderdale's wrist is an Omega Speedmaster, and the date makes it notable. Omega had introduced the Speedmaster in 1957 as a racing chronograph, the speed in the name referring to motorsport rather than rockets, and NASA would not qualify it for manned spaceflight until 1965. A 1964 film therefore catches the watch in its last season as just another professional chronograph, and this is one of its earliest screen appearances on record. Lauderdale consults it on screen to check the time, and in the armory scene the watch shows on a steel bracelet at his left cuff while he handles the weapons. The frames never get close enough to read a reference, so the model stands at Speedmaster and no further.