Giant (1956)

Giant

A Texas cattle baron's marriage to a Maryland socialite plays out across a quarter century as oil, struck by a resentful ranch hand on a scrap of land he was given, reshapes the family's fortunes and the state. (Wikipedia) George Stevens directed from Edna Ferber's 1952 novel, with Elizabeth Taylor as Leslie Benedict, Rock Hudson as Bick Benedict and James Dean as Jett Rink in his final role, alongside Carroll Baker, Mercedes McCambridge, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo and Rod Taylor; Warner Bros. opened it at the Roxy in New York on October 10, 1956.

Watches

Jaeger-LeCoultre (unidentified model)

Worn by James Dean as Jett Rink. Watchonista's 2022 visit to the Fairmount Historical Museum in Indiana examined the 30 mm 18K yellow-gold LeCoultre that Dean had on him when he died, which the article records as a 17-jewel calibre 480/CW, and reports that the watch appears in both Rebel Without a Cause and Giant; the museum displays it beside a photograph of Dean wearing it, and the article's own illustration for Giant is Sid Avery's 1955 photograph of Dean on location in Marfa, Texas, not a frame from the film. The model is unresolved: some read the watch as a Powermatic, and the US-cased LeCoultre line of the tariff years, Swiss movements cased in America to avoid import duties, does not map cleanly onto the Swiss catalogue, so the watch is known only by its maker, the same limit that applies to the gold watch Dean wears as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). (Watchonista) Coronet's 2021 survey of Dean's watches likewise reports the museum's attribution of this watch to Giant, beside the Westclox Wrist Ben it ties to Rebel Without a Cause. (Coronet) The film itself shows a gold-toned watch on a bracelet on Jett's left wrist in the late banquet scene, where the drunken oilman slumps at the head table of the Jett Rink Day dinner with his hand against his face; the frame confirms that Jett wears a wristwatch but does not resolve a dial or signature, so it supports the museum's attribution without proving it.

© Warner Bros. Pictures