Jacob & Co. Mark 50th Anniversary of "The Godfather"

The main musical theme for a special watch.

"When I first came to the USA from Uzbekistan in 1979, I was 14 years old, didn’t speak the language, and my family didn’t have a penny to its name,"  recalls Jacob & Co. founder Jacob Arabo. "It took me two years to earn the time and money to go to the movies.

The Godfather was being released again; it was the first movie I saw in a theater.” Arabo has consolidated his special personal relationship with this movie in a timepiece.

A new edition of the model with a triple-axis tourbillon and mechanical music box has been launched in honor of the movie's 50th anniversary which plays the film's main theme music: Opera Godfather 50th Anniversary.

It's such a great source of inspiration that the watch is simply overflowing with symbols from the movie. The side of the 49-mm case in white gold is laser-etched with 13 scenes from the film which follow the same narrative order as the movie!

And there are 13 famous quotes from the film inscribed on the music box mechanism's two rotating rose-gold cylinders, including "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" and "Never ask me about my business". The music box mechanism can be activated by pressing the pusher at 10 o'clock.

The cylinders with 36 teeth brush against combs as they rotate to play the film's theme song, which consists of 120 notes. The beginning of the melody triggers a real show: the openworked movement and dial assembly of the Opera Godfather 50th Anniversary complete a 120° rotation.

One comb doubles up as the keys of a piano bearing an image of Marlon Brando as Don Corleone, while the other comb bears a Godfather puppet-string logo plate from the original movie poster.

A rose rises up in the center of the dial — one of the movie's symbols — while the role traditionally played by a winding crown is performed by a violin-shaped winding crank.

The scale of this serious anniversary isn't just reflected in the watch. For the Godfather's 50th anniversary, Jacob & Co. have also created a crystal decanter featuring a print of Marlon Brando in an impressive wooden case and "The Godfather Pen" with the same rose on the cap. 

They all come together as a set. A total of just 50 of these sets are available. The watch's unveiling was also reminiscent of Jacob Arabo fulfilling a childhood dream.

Journalists and friends were invited to Michael Corleone's villa in Sicily, preserved exactly as it would have been when used as a film-shoot location in 1971. Gianni Russo who played Carlo Rizzi in the movie was a guest of honor at the event.