Rik Van Nutter wears a Rolex GMT-Master

Felix Leiter, the CIA man at Bond's side, was played by a different actor almost every time he appeared in the Connery era: Jack Lord in Dr. No, Cec Linder in Goldfinger, and in Thunderball (1965) Rik Van Nutter, in his only outing before Norman Burton took over for Diamonds Are Forever. This time the job is the Bahamas, where Bond and Leiter hunt the NATO warheads Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) has stolen. The film itself arrived through a courtroom: Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham had sued Ian Fleming after the 1961 novel appeared, arguing it was built on a screenplay the three had written together, and the settlement left McClory holding the screen rights and sole producer credit on this production.

Leiter wears two watches in the film. In his first helicopter scene, and indoors with Pinder, he has an all-gold piece, and for the later Coast Guard helicopter sweeps he switches to a steel tool watch: 40 millimetres, black dial, steel link bracelet, and a red-and-blue Pepsi bezel. The bezel markings and the date window at three o'clock identify it as a Rolex GMT-Master, reference 1675, rather than a Submariner, since no Submariner carried a date until the following year. Rolex had built the GMT-Master line with Pan Am in 1954 so that crews could track two time zones at once. Van Nutter wears both watches on the inside of his left wrist, dial turned in.