George Folsey Jr — watch collection

About George Folsey Jr’s watch collection

George Folsey Jr is a veteran Hollywood film editor and producer whose career spans decades of American cinema. He is best known for his long creative partnership with director John Landis, collaborating on films including The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London, Trading Places, and Coming to America. Beyond editing, Folsey has worked as a producer on numerous projects, accumulating a reputation as one of the more quietly influential behind-the-scenes figures of the blockbuster era. His work sits at the intersection of sharp comedic timing and visceral genre filmmaking — a combination that defined much of Hollywood's output through the 1980s and into the 1990s.

The George Folsey Jr watch collection, as far as we have been able to document, centers on at least one piece of considerable character: a yellow gold Cartier Tank Louis Cartier. What makes this particular watch notable is not just the reference itself — the Tank Louis Cartier is the most architecturally faithful interpretation of Louis Cartier's original 1917 design, housing a manual-winding movement in a case that has changed very little in over a century — but the caseback engraving. Inscribed with the phrase 'FUCK'EM IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE,' the watch was a gift from John Landis, and it functions as a wearable artifact of their professional relationship and shared sensibility.

A Cartier Tank given by John Landis to George Folsey Jr tells you something specific about both men. Landis chose one of the most restrained, architecture-driven watches in the Cartier catalog, then had the caseback engraved with something that would never appear in any brand catalog. The result is a serious watch carrying a deliberately unserious message — which, given the films these two made together, seems entirely appropriate.