Easy Rider (1969)

Easy Rider

Two bikers ride from Los Angeles toward Mardi Gras in New Orleans on the proceeds of a cocaine deal, encountering a small-town lawyer, a hippie commune, and hostile locals along the way. (Wikipedia) Directed by Dennis Hopper, who also stars alongside Peter Fonda as bikers Billy and Wyatt ("Captain America"), with Jack Nicholson in a breakout supporting role as lawyer George Hanson. Released by Columbia Pictures in July 1969 on a budget of roughly $400,000 against a $60 million gross, the film is credited with helping launch the New Hollywood movement of the early 1970s.

Watches

Rolex GMT-Master 1675

Worn by Peter Fonda as Wyatt ("Captain America"). A Sotheby's Important Watches lot catalogues a yellow gold GMT-Master, ref. 1675, with a brown "nipple dial" as "Owned and screen worn by Peter Fonda in Easy Rider," noting it "famously appears in the opening sequence" and that Fonda owned it personally for decades; the catalogue essay specifically flags this early gold example as cased without crown guards, a detail later production runs of the reference added. A gold-cased watch is plainly visible on Fonda's wrist as he closes the flag-tank fuel cap in the film's opening sequence, though the soft-focus close framing does not resolve the dial itself. Provenance for the reference is direct from Fonda via a 2007 Heritage Auctions sale. (Sothebys) That 2007 sale is Heritage Auctions' October 2007 Signature Entertainment auction (lot 22268), whose essay, written with Fonda's own account, says he bought "this 18k gold prototype Rolex GMT Master watch with date feature" to reward himself after drafting the Easy Rider screenplay in under three hours on a French beach in 1968, that "The watch is very briefly visible in the early, pre-credit scenes of the movie", and that "a different one was used for the scene where his character tosses it away", the bracelet being a later purchase; so the gold GMT-Master is Wyatt's watch on the wrist, and the watch thrown into the dust to open the road trip was a stand-in. (Heritage Auctions)

© Columbia Pictures