Woody Strode wears an unidentified watch

Italian poliziotteschi films of the early 1970s were violent, blunt, and completely uninterested in subtlety. Fernando Di Leo's The Italian Connection (1972), originally La Mala Ordina, is the second film in his Milieu trilogy. Two American hitmen are sent to Milan to kill a small-time pimp named Luca Canali (Mario Adorf) who's been framed for stealing a heroin shipment. Woody Strode plays Frank Webster, one half of the hitman duo alongside Henry Silva's Dave Catania — a pairing often cited as an influence on Tarantino's Pulp Fiction hitmen.

This promotional image shows another character from the film, not Strode. His steel watch, visible elsewhere in the film, hasn't been identified. Strode was 58 when he made this picture, still physically imposing after decades as a football player and character actor in John Ford westerns. For a professional killer working a job in a foreign city, a plain steel watch makes sense — nothing that draws attention, nothing that says anything except what time it is.