Devotion (2022)

Devotion

A pair of U.S. Navy fighter pilots risk their lives during the Korean War. (IMDb) Directed by J. D. Dillard from a screenplay by Jake Crane and Jonathan A. Stewart, the Columbia Pictures war drama adapts Adam Makos' book Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice and opened in the United States on 23 November 2022. Jonathan Majors plays Ensign Jesse L. Brown, the Navy's first Black carrier aviator, and Glen Powell his wingman Lieutenant Junior Grade Tom Hudner, with Christina Jackson as Daisy Brown and Thomas Sadoski as squadron commander Dick Cevoli; the action runs from 1950 training at Quonset Point to combat flown off the USS Leyte. (Wikipedia)

Watches

IWC Special Watch for Pilots

Worn by Glen Powell as Tom Hudner. Hudner flies with a vintage IWC ref. 436 pilot's watch, a costume choice that sets him slightly apart from the G.I.-issue steel watches worn elsewhere in VF-32. Hodinkee identifies the reference directly, reporting the piece came from the IWC museum for use in the film. It is IWC's Special Pilot's Watch of 1936, which the Homberger brothers, both fliers themselves, specified with an antimagnetic movement, shatterproof front glass and reliable running from -40 to +40 degrees C for the unheated cockpits of the day. Montres de Luxe and BAMF Style independently corroborate the model. (Hodinkee; Montres de Luxe; IWC press; BAMF Style) Hodinkee also lists the small seconds, the International Watch Company wordmark and "Anti-Magnetique" text beneath the hands, and a rotating bezel with an elapsed-time index, first glimpsed as Hudner fiddles with his shirt cuff on meeting Brown; it credits props to Eric J. Bates. (Hodinkee)

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Rolex Oysterdate Precision 6694

Worn by Jonathan Majors as Jesse L. Brown. Brown wears the Oysterdate through the film's later stretch, a 34 mm steel watch with a cyclops date at three, given to him aboard the Leyte by Black sailors serving below decks and engraved on the back. It is the film's most loaded object: a gift from men who could not fly, to the Navy's first Black aviator. The reference is anachronistic by more than a decade against the 1950 to 1953 setting, the 6694 arriving late in the decade, which is a costume liberty rather than a period detail. (BAMF Style) Hodinkee reads the reference from the close-up as the box is opened, "what appears to be a ref. 6694", with uniform stick markers, a white dial, black text and the cyclops, reports the caseback inscription as "Above all others" and the gift as bought with money the sailors pooled while docked at Cannes, and doubts that a production would engrave a genuine vintage Rolex, leaving the watch's authenticity and year open while standing by the reference. (Hodinkee)

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Bulova (unidentified model)

Worn by Jonathan Majors as Jesse L. Brown. Probable identification. Brown's first watch, before the Oysterdate gift, is a steel watch on a steel bracelet that Hodinkee, explicit that "Majors wears two watches, and Powell wears one, throughout", reads from close-ups as "what appears to be a Bulova MIL-W-3818A", while allowing "It's also possible that it's an A17A" and asking readers with keener eyes to settle it; the frames do not resolve the dial. It shows in the Cannes bar scene, where Hudner's IWC and Brown's watch peek from the sleeves of their service dress whites at the same time, and in the still above, on Majors's crossed arms in flight gear beside an aircraft. Props by Eric J. Bates. (Hodinkee)

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