Can someone identify the wristwatch worn by the "Iwo Jima" deck crewsman looking through binoculars at 2:08:10 into the film? (while waiting the command module to come out of blackout)
It looks like having dual display, analogue hands + smaller digital LCD.
If your description is true (will have to wait for HDTV viewing... soon), then it would be "anachronic", but only by a couple years. IIRC, such timepieces were everywhere, and cheap, by 1974... maybe earlier. OTOH, sailors travel the world, so maybe such a watch WAS available, earlier, overseas, for big $$...?
I mean think of all the "extras" acting in this movie (spectators in bleachers on launch day, throngs of reporters, etc.)... I guess the wardrobe guys/gals might've missed a detail here and there... YOU'RE FIRED!
NOW I'm going to wonder if the BINOCULARS were period-correct...
Anyway, GOOD CATCH! Ron Howard should send you a valuable, autographed memento from this film.
Nailed it.
It is I who should send Ron Howard a valuable, autographed memento of his authenticity: it's a Rolex GMT Master with red/blue bezel, available since the sixties, and the tiny "LCD" it's actually text printed below the center:
GMT MASTER
Superlative Chronometer
Officially Certified
PS: binoculars, turtlenecks are period-correct, too
;-)
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?38fwo8y8ap42t24
Yep... retrieved my CD set... that's what it looks like. Can't tell if guys are enlisted or officers, but either way, could guys that junior afford such a timepiece??? Hmmm...
Anyway, they got most/all of the clothes and cars (and UNfiltered Camel ciggies) correct for that era. If only the elder Lovell daughter had been rocking out to Grand Funk Railroad, to help her get over Duh Beatles.
It's an officer. His jersey says "Air Boss," which means he was the commander of the air wing. However, you could get items like that much cheaper in the PX, where they were sold at only a slight markup (with a maximum mandated by military regulations), or overseas, where they would be much cheaper. That was one of the perks of an overseas deployment; cheap luxury goods, depending on location.
When I was a naval supply officer, the maximum markup was 20% and I believe the Naval Exchange (Navy version of the PX) ran under similar guidelines. Also, you had no sales tax, since it is federal territory. Enlisted men could potentially buy such things, especially if they were receiving specialty pay and ad no dependents.
"Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!"
"Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!"
Foghorn Leghorn? Also period-correct!
could guys that junior afford such a timepiece???Rolexes were nowhere near as expensive back then as they are now. A GMT Master in 1970 cost about $250, which is about $2000 in today’s money, something an average person could save up for or receive as a special gift (e.g. for OCS graduation). Current models start at $10,000. share
I don't know about the watch, but the modular cord that was shown on at least one of the Western Electric Model 500 phones was anachronistic. They also showed an Automatic Electric AE80 rotary phone (they look similar to the Western Electric model 500), which, while not anachronistic, was illegal to connect to a phone line in Bell System territory at the time. AE phones were used in e.g., GTE territory like Hawaii, but the vast majority of the United States was Bell System territory.
Younger people might think, "People can buy whatever kind of phone they want," but that's not how it worked in the US prior to 1983. You didn't buy a phone at the store; the phone company leased phones to customers, and if you were in Bell System territory, you certainly weren't getting an AE phone. You got a Western Electric phone (Western Electric was the manufacturing arm of the Bell System) that said on it, "Bell System Property - Not For Sale".
And totally going off topic (and risking being called boomer), younger people probably didn't know that you didn't have to replace a land line phone every two or three years because they crapped out. The phones made before the Bell breakup were, well, unbreakable. They were clunky, heavy, and STURDY as all get out. It was very unusual to have a desk or wall phone go bad where Bell had to come out and replace it.
I remember doing home service calls with my dad back in the 70s, and I used to see a lot of original 1940s style bakelite phones still working properly. Most of them were still working fine when the pulse dial was eventually ended.
Yeah, I have several Western Electric phones: 500s, 554s, 2500s, and a "Fortress" payphone, and they are all practically indestructible. It's rare to find one that isn't working, regardless of how old it is.
"Most of them were still working fine when the pulse dial was eventually ended."
Pulse dialing still works fine for me, but then, I have phone service from a real phone company, rather than a company that provides phone service over the internet. That means that not only does pulse dialing still work, but if the power goes out, my phones still work, because with a real phone company, the phones are powered by battery banks at the central office which aren't affected by power outages. If your phone service is from an ISP rather than a real phone company, anything that takes down your internet also takes down your phone service.
If your phone service doesn't support pulse dialing you can still use a rotary phone if you wire an external keypad to it. Technically it doesn't even have to be wired to it, i.e., if you have a device with a speaker that can generate DTMF tones, you can hold it close to the receiver and dial the phone that way. For example, hold the rotary phone's receiver close to your PC speaker (or a smartphone) and you can dial it with this:
https://onlinetonegenerator.com/dtmf.html
There were several TVs shown that were built in the early 80s, like the one Mrs. Lovell was trying to see her son on.
The only TV I know for sure that's period correct is the console TV that was in the Lovell's home. That was a 67 - 69 RCA, and judging by the slight non linearity of the scan, that wasn't a stage prop but was actually producing the video that the family was watching.