Lawrence of Arabia director...on set, what watch?

[borderline]

I thought this was interesting, from a recent New Yorker article on director David Lean who did Lawrence of Arabia and other epics.

What do we have here? Khakis, no doubt. A white shirt, not a dress shirt? Sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Nice glasses. Any guesses as to the watch? Note this is 1962. He is from England, but I suppose it could be a Hamilton...

Anyway, seems like he's rockin' the casual style nicely on location.

 

[alliswell]

I'm going to guess: Jaeger LeCoultre.

 

[Bill Smith]

Maybe an old Longines tank watch, I have a similar one I inherited from my dad.

 

[Eustace Tilley]

Originally Posted by letmebefell

I'm going to guess: Jaeger LeCoultre.

Looks a bit wide to be a classic Reverso.

 

[SoCal2NYC]

Yah looks more like a perfect square than the JLC rectangle.

 

[STYLE_ADDICT]

Omega or Cartier Tank??

 

[meister]

what brand of (vintage) sunnies is he wearing?

 

[John Ellis]

This guy was catmint for girls. He was married six times and had innumerable affairs. For tax reasons he had to leave England in the late fifties and spent two or three years bumming around Europe's most expensive hotels driving a Rolls Royce with nothing but a trunk full of expensive luggage filled with stylish clothes. Ie. a male fantasy. It helped that he was incredibly talented, there's no doubt Lawrence is one of the greatest movies ever made although he made a lot of other good ones too. Of course he directed a few bummers, which director hasn't, but I do find a lot of lot of the critic's carping a bit trivial. A bit like those car testers who criticise the positioning of the cigarette lighter in the latest Ferrari. The New Yorker piece wasn't free of this phony pop psychologizing and it was loaded down with political correctness but also had some interesting things to say. He was always a stylish dresser whether he was attending the oscars or wrestling with a light in a rainstorm. This particular still can be found in a very good biog of him by Kevin Brownlow that came out in the late 90's.

 

[borderline]

I would also argue that he is not wearing a particularly slim-fitting shirt. Of course, it's probably about 110F there too, and having a bit of billowing in the shirt might help. Wonder if he is wearing some Clarks desert boots!

A British geophysicist I know once mentioned to me that he was working in Africa (Jordan or Morocco, I forget which) at the same time that they were filming this, and he had a drink with Peter O'Toole at the bar one evening.

 

[Tomasso]

Originally Posted by borderline

I would also argue that he is not wearing a particularly slim-fitting shirt.
Slim fitting shirts really didn't appear until the 70's. Prior to then even bespoke shirts were cut fuller.

 

[Teacher]

There's just no way to tell what watch this is. From the 30s and into the 50s, the vast majority of men's watches were rectalinear.

 

[grimslade]

Originally Posted by Teacher

There's just no way to tell what watch this is. From the 30s and into the 50s, the vast majority of men's watches were rectalinear.

True. Of course. But since we're playing, I'm going to go with JLC.

 

[Teacher]

Originally Posted by grimslade

True. Of course. But since we're playing, I'm going to go with JLC.

Okay then: Lord Elgin 18k 50,000,000th movement anniversary watch (yes, there was such a thing!).

 

[LabelKing]

I had a Gruen in platinum that resembled that watch a lot.

 

[bcate3]

Originally Posted by Eustace Tilley

Looks a bit wide to be a classic Reverso.

Originally Posted by SoCal2NYC

Yah looks more like a perfect square than the JLC rectangle.

I also wonder whether Reversos were made at the time of this picture. The Reverso line went out of production staring around/after WW2 and was revived some time in the early 60s. (The lore is that an Italian jeweler found a bunch of NOS cases in the factory, fitted them with movements & sold out the inventory.) I suppose Lean could've been an early customer or wearing a vintage model, but the shape doesn't look right.