SUB 300T Sharkhunter

Caught in a desperate bind after the massacre at the American Literary Historical Society, Joseph Turner makes a frantic call from a New York public phone booth, trying to reach a trusted CIA contact and figure out who inside the Agency is still safe. Speaking to the agency's so-called 'Panic Office' contact, The Major, he urgently relays what happened, only to be reprimanded for using an unsecured public line, which deepens the scene's atmosphere of procedural distrust and escalating paranoia.

The moment marks Turner’s abrupt transformation from a quiet, bookish CIA analyst into a man improvising under intense pressure in public. The camera does not isolate the watch as a hero prop, but it appears clearly enough when his hand rises to the receiver: a steel DOXA diver with a matte-black dial and black bezel, worn on a broad dark leather bund-style strap. Against the glass, metal, winter clothing, and street noise of the phone booth setting, the watch reads as practical equipment rather than ornament.

Tight framing on Turner’s face, the booth’s reflective glass, and the indifferent city around him all heighten his vulnerability. The watch becomes a subtle visual counterpoint to the scene’s urgency, reinforcing the sense that he is suddenly operating against the clock in a world where even the people he is calling may not be trustworthy.

The object

DOXA, founded in Le Locle in 1889 by Georges Ducommun, established its modern reputation in professional dive watches with the SUB line introduced in the late 1960s. The SUB 300T name traces to the 1968 SUB 300T Conquistador, widely cited by DOXA as the first dive watch for the general public fitted with a helium release valve. The line also became strongly associated with professional diving culture and undersea exploration, including its visibility through Jacques Cousteau-era dive enthusiasm.

The SUB 300T Sharkhunter is the black-dial, black-bezel variant of DOXA’s classic cushion-cased diver. The modern version is specified with a 42.5 mm 316L stainless-steel case, sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment, a screw-down crown, a date display, and a patented unidirectional bezel incorporating DOXA’s U.S. Navy no-decompression dive-time scale. DOXA rates the current model to 1,200 meters of water resistance and equips it with a Swiss automatic movement running at 28,800 vibrations per hour with roughly 38 hours of power reserve. Standard current options typically include the brand’s beads-of-rice steel bracelet or rubber strap.

In Three Days of the Condor, Joseph Turner wears the Sharkhunter execution, identifiable by its matte-black dial within the SUB 300T case profile. On screen, however, it is notably paired with a dark leather bund-style strap rather than the standard steel bracelet—a non-standard configuration that makes the watch feel more like personal field gear than formal issue equipment. That strap choice strengthens the watch’s rugged, utilitarian presence in the film and helps it register as a believable tool watch for a character suddenly forced into survival mode.

DOXA continues to sell the SUB 300T Sharkhunter as part of its modern catalog, preserving the black-dial Sharkhunter designation associated with the historic line.