007>>50
Ursula Andress), this is not James Bond’s first on-screen watch. In his debut scene in Dr No, Bond is playing chemin de fer at Le Cercle casino in London while flirting with the first-ever Bond Girl, one Sylvia Trench, played by Eunice Gayson. We have a tantalising glimpse of a slim evening watch, which has been identified by Deaton as “a Rolex (not a perpetual) with a gold-coloured case, a light-coloured dial and a dark-coloured strap”. He believes that the same timepiece appears on Bond’s wrist in From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964) and You Only Live Twice (1967).
RADIOACTIVE DIALS
But the Rolex Submariner is what most people remember as The Bond Watch. About 45 minutes into Dr No, Bond takes delivery of a Geiger counter from London and to test that it is working he runs the wand across the luminous face of his watch. It crackles loudly as it picks up the radiation from the isotope of the element radium that was used on Rolexes of the period. In the real world, replacing the dials of the Rolex models came something of a craze when the dangers of radiation was publicised. Due to health and safety fears in 2008, the dial of
Fleming’s own 1016 Explorer, case number 596851, was replaced before it was displayed at London’s Imperial War Museum in an exhibition entitled “For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond”.
Back on the silver screen, Bond sported a Rolex
Submariner with a dark textured (crocodile?) strap in From Russia With Love, but for his next adventure, Goldfinger, the strap had been replaced by a more masculine NATO or tri-colour striped nylon fabric strap. The Rolex Submariner was an official watch of the British armed forces, including Royal Navy divers – the military issue models are known as Milsubs - but often the models used had solid bars fixed into the lugs so that a nylon strap could be fitted. With a normal strap there is always a danger of losing the watch if one pin fails. The bars do not seem solid on Bond’s watch and – even worse - in Goldfinger the watch appears to have a 16mm strap on 20mm lugs (see left), it’s not a good fit and is surely below 007’s – and the RN’s – precise standards. So this seems to have been a well- meaning, but half-hearted attempt to give Sean Connery a military-looking timepiece.
THE RIGHT STRAP? Continuity is not always perfect in the early Bond movies. In Thunderball, the familiar croc strap on the Submariner appears for about two-thirds of the action, but then is unexplainably transformed into a nylon military strap about 98 minutes into the film. Unlike in Goldfinger, this is a bi-colour version in grey and blue and some Bond watchers have a problem with this. According to some sources, the dark and light stripes are the regimental colours of the General Service Corps. Military (Army) personnel employed on covert intelligence duties were seconded to the GSC while employed on these duties but Commander Bond RN would never have been seconded to the GSC as a Royal Navy officer. Apparently... Along with his Submariner in Thunderball, Bond also uses two Breitling Top Times, courtesy of the Q gadget department. The watch in Connery’s last outing, Diamonds Are Forever (1971), has not been determined, but a Rolex Submariner – sometimes certainly a 5513 – is the choice of Roger Moore in Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), this time with a stainless steel bracelet. Especially from the mid-1970s
Seiko era, the clever men in Q’s gadget department loaded up Bond’s watches with all sorts of trickery – Geiger counters, rotating saw-blade bezel, ticker-tape print- out, liquid crystal TV monitors and directional tracker kit. But just like fans have their favourite interpreter of the role from Sean Connery (six films), George Lazenby (one), Roger Moore (seven), Timothy Dalton (two), Pierce Brosnan (four) and Daniel Craig (three, including the new Skyfall), so fans have their favourite James Bond watch moment. For the essence of 007 in all his elegant, privileged, enviable glory, we will nominate the moment 2.42 minutes into the opening scene in Goldfinger when Sean Connery in a white tuxedo lights a cigarette and consults his “big crown” Rolex Submariner. That’s the perfect James Bond timepiece and Christopher Ward is pleased to salute it with its new C60 Trident GMT Automatic and its new C60 Trident Automatic, both with the striped nylon strap.
The author Eric Musgrave acknowledges the research to be found on
www.jamesbondwatches.com, a detailed site put together by Dell Deaton. See also
www.jamesbond.ajb007.co.uk/ rolex-submariner/
www.diving-watch.org/JAMES-BOND- PAGE,
www.timefactors.com/nato.htm
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2.42 MINUTES INTO GOLDFINGER IS THE CL ASSIC MOMENT WHEN BOND IN A WHITE TUXEDO CONSULTS HIS “BIG CROWN” ROLEX SUBMARINER WITH THE STRIPED NYLON STRAP
JAMES BOND WATCH EXPERT DELL DEATON BELIEVES THAT IN ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE IAN FLEMING IMAGINED BOND WITH A ROLEX EXPLORER I, WHICH WAS THE ONLY ROLEX THAT THE AUTHOR HIMSELF EVER OWNED
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