The Field Watch off the Battlefield

Field watches

Bullitt’s Benrus 3061 shares its movement with a military watch but wears a polished civilian case. Alan Grant’s probable Waltham in Jurassic Park retains the small-seconds layout of a wartime watch.

ByIMWDb Editorial19 July 2026

Laura Dern as Ellie Sattler wears an early military-dial Timex Expedition-family watch in Jurassic Park, two years before Timex says the Expedition line launched.

Character	Film or series	Watch	Place on the spectrum
Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen)	Bullitt	Benrus 3061	Civilian derivative of the DTU-2A/P military pattern
Alan Grant (Sam Neill)	Jurassic Park	Waltham Military Field Watch	Probable 1940s military watch; exact reference unresolved
Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern)	Jurassic Park	Pre-Expedition Timex military-dial design	Early-1990s civilian military-dial watch
Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Andy Bernard (Ed Helms)	The Office	Victorinox Swiss Army Infantry and Orvis Field Watch	Civilian lifestyle and outfitter watches
Jessie (Cailee Spaeny)	Civil War	Timex Expedition family	Contemporary outdoor field watch; exact reference unresolved
Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo)	Superman	Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical H69439531	Exact modern heritage reference

Bullitt: the civilian DTU-2A/P

Steve McQueen's Frank Bullitt wears a Benrus 3061 in Bullitt. The model descends directly from the DTU-2A/P watches Benrus supplied to the United States military, but the 3061 was built for civilian sale. It keeps the compact case, luminous Arabic numerals, minute track and simple hand-wound movement. It adds a polished case, a signed dial and a red-tipped seconds hand, details that separate it from the parkerized, unsigned service watches.

A Bullitt publicity photograph shows Steve McQueen as Frank Bullitt wearing the Benrus 3061; its polished case and red-tipped seconds hand distinguish the civilian watch from its military siblings.

Worn & Wound's examination of the 3061 traces the family resemblance down to the DR 2F2 movement, Benrus's designation for the ETA 2372. The 3061 retains the military model’s movement in a civilian case.

McQueen's association later became part of the reference's commercial life. Benrus now describes the 3061 as its “Bullitt” watch and revived it in 2025 as a 39.5 mm automatic with an ETA 2892 and 42-hour power reserve. The current 3061 retains the dial layout in a larger case with an automatic movement. The screen watch remains the smaller hand-wound original.

Jurassic Park: two field watches, two histories

Jurassic Park puts field watches on both of its scientists. Sam Neill's Alan Grant wears a probable Waltham Military Field Watch. The small seconds register appears to place 5 and 7 unusually close together, and the angular lugs agree with documented Waltham military watches. Those are useful visual clues, not an exact-reference confirmation; the scene never gives the dial or caseback the inspection needed to go further.

Sam Neill as Alan Grant wears a probable Waltham Military Field Watch: period military hardware reused as a working civilian's watch.

Laura Dern as Ellie Sattler wears an early military-dial Timex Expedition-family watch during the Triceratops examination.

Laura Dern's Ellie Sattler wears a dark-dialed Timex with bold Arabic numerals and none of the Waltham's wartime provenance. It is routinely called an Expedition, and the family resemblance is convincing. The chronology resists an exact model claim. Principal photography took place in 1992 and the film opened in 1993; Timex's own company history dates the Expedition launch to 1995. Ellie's watch is therefore better understood as a pre-Expedition Timex military-dial design later absorbed into that line.

The Office: Jim's Victorinox and Andy's Orvis

In The Office, John Krasinski's Jim Halpert wears a Victorinox Swiss Army Infantry, while Ed Helms's Andy Bernard is seen with an Orvis Field Watch. Both are civilian products.

John Krasinski as Jim Halpert wears a Victorinox Swiss Army Infantry, bringing field-watch numerals to office casualwear.John Krasinski as Jim Halpert, with the Victorinox Swiss Army Infantry visible on his left wrist in The Office.

Ed Helms as Andy Bernard wears an Orvis Field Watch in an NBC publicity portrait. The exact reference remains unresolved.

The Victorinox Infantry and the Orvis share Arabic numerals, restrained cases, and practical straps, despite coming from a Swiss Army-branded watchmaker and an outdoor outfitter respectively. Those features carry into Jim and Andy's office clothes without any military role in the story. No source documents the costume designer's intent behind either watch. Wrist Enthusiast's survey of watches in The Office supports the model-level identifications; the available frames do not resolve either watch to a narrower reference.

Two photographers, two modern field watches

Two recent films put a field watch on a photographer, but the watches sit at different ends of the modern category. In Civil War, Cailee Spaeny's Jessie wears a Timex Expedition-family watch. In Superman, Skyler Gisondo's Jimmy Olsen wears the exact Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical H69439531.

Cailee Spaeny as Jessie wears a Timex Expedition-family watch in Civil War. The case and dial are visible; the exact reference is not.

Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen wears the exact Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical H69439531 in Superman.

The Timex Expedition is the inexpensive outdoor branch of the family tree. Several watch spotting pages call it the T41181, but the scene evidence supports only the Expedition family: the reference-level details and caseback never resolve.

Hamilton makes the historical borrowing explicit. The H69439531 has a 38 mm steel case, hand-wound H-50 movement, 80-hour power reserve, 50 m water resistance, and the 12- and 24-hour scales inherited from American military dials. Hamilton's own product record identifies Gisondo, Jimmy Olsen and the film, so the reference is secure.

For the reverse question (how well films handle watches when the characters really are in uniform), see How Accurate Are Military Watches in War Movies?.

Sources and further reading

Clarification, 7 September 2026: the comparisons now describe the watches' visible features without treating readings of the characters as documented costume-design intent.