This was a tv movie, with all the budget and content limitations that implies, and it STILL kicks ass. Just goes to show that talent really does make a big difference.
My buddy and I caught this about 15 minutes into it, on TV in the middle of the night this one night when we were about 18 years old in 1995. It is a night I will always remember. We had no idea what we were watching, and we couldn't believe what we were seeing. Great movie. 👍
Bro I have a similar story. Was just me though, was probably 2002, 16 years old just getting into smoking weed, had a shitty crt tv in my room went outside and smoked a joint, came back in this movie was just starting at like midnight. Watched the whole thing in awe. Still holds a spot in my heart. Great flick.
This movie is like JAWS but with a truck. Steven Spielberg said in an interview that "these are two leviathans that would haunt an everyman, like our character played by Dennis Weaver."
I like Duel better than Jaws personally because it feels like it could actually happen as oppose to a Shark seeking revenge since sharks don't act nearly that aggressive all the time. People on the road however can get crazy....
@@benfisher1376 yeah, however there were many times when David could've Just turned around and went home but he choose to duel the semi truck instead. Amazingly he won
In fact Matheson wrote a short story based on his personal experience: he an a friend were tailgated by a huge truck while coming back from a golf game in the very day President Kennedy was murdered.
A made for TV Movie that was so good they added some scenes at re released it in the theaters . It was a classic that showed how good Spielberg was with little to no budget .
I saw this on TV when it premiered, which I think was in November 1971. I was 3 years old. For some reason, when the truck went over the edge at the end of the movie I started laughing hysterically, so much so that my babysitter got scared and had to ask me if I was laughing or crying. The movie was filmed up in Acton, on the other side of the mountains just north of Pasadena where we lived. The laundromat isn't there anymore, but I believe the restaurant is.
Great choice. This was a made for TV movie, not a theater release & I saw it at the time. Spielberg said in an interview he had considered setting the truck on fire but decided against it-- he wanted viewers to experience the truck as a menacing monster dying. He also mentioned he wanted the ending to be realistic. After such an experience, the man is alone....It made a huge impression on me back in the day.
"Never give a trucker an even break" is an episode from the old 70s Incredible Hulk series which uses a lot of footage from this movie which Spielberg wasn't too happy about.
I had a trucker driver try to kill me in a road rage incident a lot like this for real. He was high on meth at the time. Chased me for several kms and then tried to run me off the motorway with his trailers. He was charged and plead guilty. Apparently it was his third road rage incident that week that was reported. I was the only one he tried to kill though. When I saw him coming for me I immediately thought of this film. Surreal.
Spielberg started out in TV. He did many episodes of TV shows in the early 70s including the pilot for Columbo. Duel was a made for TV movie and is, technically, his first film. It got theatrical release in Europe but not in America. He did a couple of more TV movies, which I haven't seen. His first theatrical release, in America anyway, was Sugarland Express which you should definitely check out. It's a nifty, little film. I grew up in the 80s and radio was very different then. We may have had less options but more variety. The radio stations that played popular music played all kinds of music not just one genre. I could listen to Prince followed by Depeche Mode followed by Run DMC followed by R.E.M. (and I have no idea if those names mean anything to you). Those radio stations that specialized in a genre would go into deep cuts and DJs had more discretion on what to play. Not to mention the college radio stations. Then in the 90's Clinton deregulated the industry which meant monopolization. I think there is basically one corporation that owns the majority of radio stations now, iHeartMedia, Inc. So there is very little variety regardless of where you're listening from. I stopped listening to radio in the early 2000s when I got an iPod.
Spielberg's episode of Columbo was Murder by the Book, which was not the pilot, but the first regular episode. There were two pilot episodes before that. A few seasons in, a kid in another episode was called "Steve Spelburg" as a homage. 😊
DUEL is older than Jaws, but it STILL terrifies people! This is a very unconventional thriller, because it takes place in mostly broad daylight, we never see the "killer"/driver, and there's just this sense of tension and paranoia the whole time, it's SO EFFECTIVE! Duel put Spielberg on the map in a big way for such a small film with a simple premise: motorist gets stalked by truck driver.
Spielberg paid homage to this film in several of his other films. The gas station with the snakes was used in "1941" and the sound of the truck going off the cliff was used when the shark dies in "Jaws".
Only a few months ago I had a large truck just move into my lane on top of me without warning. I had to nearly slam the brakes to avoid being hit. I honked and flipped him off, which I felt was justified. Moved to the left lane and sped up to pass, as I do he looks me dead in the eyes. Then after I get back in front of him (didn't cut him off or flip him off again just normal passing) he goes to the left lane, speeds up, and then does the same thing again this time no question it was intentional, nearly rammed me into the barrier. Don't know wtf his problem was.
Enjoyed your review. So I'm gonna give you something to look at : Type in : Duel (1971) - A Conversation with Steven Spielberg In this documentary Spielberg reveals all about how an unknown TV director pulled this masterpiece off ! And also he reveals how much of an ordinary little TV movie it would gave turned out to be in the hands of an 'ordinary TV director' ~ who wouldn't dare to challenge the producers like Spielberg did ~ It's very interesting ! Believe me.
"Land of Enchantment" is still the slogan on New Mexico's license plates. Spielberg's short film "Amblin'" is on TH-cam and he named Amblin Entertainment after it. Also watch "The Sugarland Express" and you have seen the pre-"Jaws" films. IMDB also lists the movies he made with his Super 8 camera as a kid, which you likely saw in whatever Spielberg documentary you watched. J.J. Abrams sort of gave a nod to that with the movie "Super 8."
Yeah IIRC even Steven Spielberg got that point wrong when he was talking about them being trophies when really it was cos trucks that operated across multiple states had to display valid license plates for each state. I think they just use stickers now.
That was really Dennis Weaver in the phone booth as the truck came at him. It wasn't a stuntman. If something went wrong, Dennis would have died. If you rewatch Jaws, at the end as the shark drops down as it dies, you can hear the sound of the truck "dying" mixed into the sound. Also, the truck is still at the bottom of that canyon to this day. :)
So happy you reacted to this movie. There is so much to love in Spielberg's debut effort as a movie director. I watched the original TV premiere of the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson, perhaps the greatest writer of sci-fi and horror short stories of the 20th century, and also one of Stephen King's favorite authors. I love the fact that the truck never blows up. That hoary movie trope has been done to death, and Spielberg was wise not to give in to such an obvious denouement. A couple of fun facts about Duel: The pest control truck that initially looked like a police car was labeled Grebleips Pest Control, Grebleips being Spielberg spelled backwards. Spielberg had multiple cameras set up the capture the truck going over the cliff, but one cameraman dutifully followed the truck all the way down, and no other camera angles were necessary. When the truck falls down the cliff, Spielberg wanted a dinosaur roar to accompany the truck driver's defeat. That very same dinosaur roar was used again in Jaws when the shark's fin reappears in the cloud of blood at the end of that film. Spielberg was only given 10 days to shoot his movie and was told he should use process shots (filming in front of a film clip of the passing landscape to indicate the action on the highway) as opposed to filming on location. But Spielberg was stubborn and filmed on the highway. He went two or three days over budget but got excellent footage, as you saw for yourself. I really love it when reactors like you dive into not just a director's most famous works but also their beginnings to see how far their talents have led them. On that same topic, might you be interested in watching John Carpenter's first movie that was filmed when he was a film student? Called "Dark Star," it's a sci-fi comedy he co wrote with Dan O'Bannon, who wrote the screenplay to Alien. Looking forward to more reactions from you. Keep up the good work.
@07:33 "dehumanizes the truck driver too" Exactly, it could be any driver, any truck, anywhere in the world at any time. One of Spielbergs best movies.
I saw this movie in the cinema back when it came out. I was impressed, especially for a new director, and thought to remember Spielberg's name for any other movies that he might make in the future.
It was a made for TV movie that was part of ABC's "MOVIE of the WEEK" series in 1971. I know because we watched it the night it was on. I was 24 years old and newly married at the time. It wasn't a theatrical release, unless it was shown years later in some theaters. It was on TV reruns for quite awhile after the initial "MOVIE of THE WEEK,
Hey, Thor, since you asked, yes, I saw it in the theater in France in 1973, when it first came out, and I was tremendously impressed. "Duel" was the first film I saw solo with the woman who would become my wife. We'd gone to two previous films as part of a group of friends, but this was what we chose for our very first actual date. Make of that what you will! (Fortunately, it acquired no metaphoric weight.) The big screen suited it, and we were gripped and horrified.
Duel was made for TV aka "movíe of the week" sort of thing. The other one that came out on TV as a 2 or 3 parter was "Salem's Lot". Not Spielberg but it is a Stephen King several part "special event". Oh "back in the day" the only option was the car radio. Not even a walkman. You could try reading in the back seat if you were a kid but would be told it was "bad for your eyes". Land of Enchantment on a license plate is for New Mexico. Being alone on a highway out west was pretty common back then. I had car trouble in Utah and had to wait till Monday to go to "the foreign car place" for my Toyota 🙂 The Stephen King one is "Christine".
Finally someone reacts to DUEL! 🙌 Great movie and great reaction! And yes, I also think the fact the driver was never really shown makes it even more scary. It's like some monster, unknown, pure evil - in shape of a big truck. Also the way it looks, dirty, rusty, all of that.. and yes, the camera work also adds a lot. My family and I used to watch this movie every now and then when it was shwon on TV back then. We also had it recorded on VHS. Good ol' times. :D
Whether intentional or not, the fact that the truck *didn't* explode makes the whole situation even more sinister -- was he just driving around in an empty tanker just looking to bump someone off?
A gem. Did anyone notice that when the truck plunges to its demise, the driver's side door is open? Like, did the driver jump off of the truck before the cliff?
Okay, you have keen eyes. I didn't notice it when I saw it on the television when I was like, I dunno, 12-13 yrs old. Absolutely loved it. I agree with you, now I feel like he would be alive, but the movie makers made us guessing what would happen next...
It's based on a story (published in _Playboy_ magazine, which featured a lot of quality fiction at the time) by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay. Matheson wrote some of the best episodes of _The Twilight Zone_ and _Star Trek_ , among other things. This theatrical release is a longer edit than the one originally made as a network TV movie. I have some contrarian opinions about a few of Spielberg's popular films, but for overlooked Spielberg I have to plug _Empire of the Sun_ , a WWII drama based on JG Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel about his childhood in Shanghai, abruptly interrupted by the Japanese invasion of China. Starring Christian Bale in his first big role at the age of 12, and some great British and American supporting actors--Nigel Havers and Miranda Richardson as fellow internees, and Joe Pantoliano and John Malkovich as captured American smugglers.
Duel is one of the few things I actually *ahem* read in Playboy (that and a few Shel Silverstein things). It was creepy on paper. Spielberg, before I knew who Spielberg was, made it just as creepy on film. But I buy into your contrarian opinions about Spielberg. He's either hit or miss for me, rather like James Cameron. Empire of the Sun I'll agree is a bit more toward the hit end of the spectrum.
Rarely did a made for television movie of the week get a theatrical release (in Europe and Asia) and get cult classic following for those of us seeing back in the 1970's, either as a re-airing or as a mid-day Saturday afternoon airing on an "Action Theatre" broadcast. This movie allowed Spielberg to cut hit teeth and sharpen them for Jaws a year later. In fact, their is a parallel kinship between the two movies. The demise of the truck and the shark share similar style. And a certain music sound cue used.
(The movie used a tag axle 1955 Peterbilt 281, making it looking like a Peterbilt 351, with two rear axles. The truck had a CAT 1674 turbocharged engine with a 13-speed transmission, making it capable of hauling loads over 30 tons and top speeds reaching 75-80 mph.)
I remember the first time watching this movie back when I was still in grade school maybe 2nd or 3rd grade somewhere between 1979 to 1981. I had gotten home from school since school let out at 3PM in the afternoon and it was on television I think maybe the 4 o'clock movie. I was between 8 to 10 years of age and remember being pretty scared by it.
I have always liked ths film and that you never see the driver. Although this is the first time I have realised that the truck has a few different numberplates on the front that are probably trophies from previous kills and shows this is not the first time he has done this.
Multiple license plates on trucks was/is a thing. Basically it's a separate registration to haul freight in different states. I don't know enough about it to say if this is the case with that vehicle, but it is pretty cool to go with the trophy theory.
@@rickardroach9075 It does make sense. But I know a lot of freight trucks had multiple plates for different states. Not sure what the intention there was, but it's a nice detail.
I love this movie and it's awesome to see someone react to it. You know, I've always wondered if the older couple David Mann asks for help before the truck begins to back up toward them are connected to the scene in Back to the Future when Marty asks that older couple in their car for help while wearing his hazmat suit and the lady tells her husband "Don't stop, Wilbur! Drive!" I've always wondered if that BttF scene is referencing Duel.
It's pretty damned good, especially for a tv movie. Another one, much in the same vein as this one is "Road Games" (1981) starring Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Thank you for reacting to this movie it's one of my all time favs and nobody reacts to!! 👊 Rumour has it that all the license plates on the front of the truck are from previous people that the truck driver has killed. Also the studio wanted the truck to blow up at the end but Spielberg said find another director to do that, it's not as effective as giving the truck a slow and painful death.
The old couple in the car are the same ones from back to the future. Plus, the end scene was done in one take and the camera shot following the truck was done perfectly. and the part where the tank is twisting around in the dust is just how the movie jaws ends as what's left of the shark as it twists in a cloud of blood. Also, the multiple plates on the trucks reenforced front bumper kind of hints at a long reign of terror. It is a classic of putting you in the Pov. Yes, there is also the movie the car 1977 and Christine.
About the license plates - I keep reading people speculating about whether they're the plates of past victims, when in fact trucks that travelled across multiple states had to be licensed in each of those states and therefore had to display multiple plates. As far as I know those interstate licensing rules still apply today but trucks just display stickers instead.
This was an original made for TV movie that was never meant to go to the theater despite later they did release it in the theaters. It was made on a shoe string budget that was shot within approx. 1 month. The sound the truck made while falling down the cliff was reused by Spielberg for his Jaws movie when it was finally killed by the compressed tank explosion and sank into the depths but Spielberg altered that sound for the Jaws movie. This movie was so good it keeps you on the edge of your seat through it's entire length.
Before this originally made for tv movie Duel and I think his first theatrical release movie was The Sugarland Express Steven Spielberg directed television shows like Columbo and Night Gallery. Night Gallery was created by Rod Serling which ran on television mostly in the very early 70s between the pilot episode that aired in Nov. 1969 through the series beginning in Dec. 1970 through May 1973. As a matter of fact he was probably directing Columbo and Night Gallery when he directed Duel. I think however the movie that really put him on the map was peobably Jaws since that's the movie he is probably mostly known for.
Saw this in our 9th grade English class back in the 80s as well as Cool Hand Luke. We were discussing Symbolism in film. Whenever I drove to the river or Vegas I would always think about this movie. By us not seeing the driver, it was way more terrifying.
Christine is the name of the Stephen King movie about the car -- Its pretty good too --- Did you notice all the different car license plates? -- I know back in the day (and maybe even still) Semi drivers had different plates for different states but on this truck it looked like kill trophy's -- also because the truck didnt explode it means the driver is still out there awaiting the next guy with a new truck --- Another Spielberg masterpiece is The Color Purple -- Its wonderful
Long-time Duel-fan here, excellent reaction/commentary! Love how you picked all the right scenes 😊 Basically it's about coming accross, recognizing, confronting and fighting a/your demon/s. Richard Matheson wrote this and decided it's time to do someting about his own sruggles with alcohol.
This is Steven Spielberg's first major movie! Before Duel Steven Spielberg did shorts for night gallery and he did some TV shows like columbo so Duel is his first movie! And because dual was a hit he got the chance to make Jaws!
This was an ABC move of the week. The next day in high school this movie is all anyone wanted to talk about. Many directors in the 1970s cut their teeth on television’s movies of the week.
I saw this when it first aired on TV. Spielberg was a young man who was directing the odd TV episode here and there. They gave him a chance, with a small budget and a tight schedule. He used multiple cameras to cover every shot. Much of the chase was done on one section of road up and back with 3 (I think) cameras. That's 6 camera angles to work with. Most of the tension comes from the editing of those shots into short clips with quick cuts. My favorite shot in the whole movie is when he comes around the bend and stops in the middle of the road, and then the camera pulls back to reveal the truck's undercarriage.
A brilliant film & it was Made for TV! So tense and you NEVER see the truck driver. You do not need a busy script, OTT action, people coming back from the dead at the end…..less is most definitely more.
I genuinely love that throughout the movie we are expecting the "Flammable" truck to explode, and then at the end...it doesn't. Normally that would be anticlimactic, but here it's a refreshing subversion of the cliche.
Not sure if it was mentioned before but there's the theory that the many different license plates on his front bumper indicate that the truck driver is a serial killer and the license plates are the trophies from his previous victims he ran off the road. So it seems that it wasn't road rage but a serial killer hunting down his newest victim.
One of the most interesting and amazing things about Duel is the lack of dialogue througout the piece. I feel it just highlights more the talent of Spielberg's directing even at such a young age. And of course Dennis Weaver's talent of acting since in Duel he had to carry 90 something percent of the movie.
33:05 Nah, the silence is eerie, the way the wheel stops spinning as the truck slowly "dies". It would be like the De Lorean exploding when hit by the train. Too cliched.
This has been one of my and my Dad's favorite movie since the early 70's. We'd always watch it when it came on TV. It gave me a childhood fear of gasoline tanker trucks, and where I grew up, busy route 1 bisected our little town. Hence, many gasoline tanker trucks to cause me great angst. LOL
You know, I was one of the many expecting the truck to explode as it went over the cliff, but I think the way they did it with the slow and painful decent was far better. You see Spielberg belived it was better to show the truck painfully dieing in this way so we could have a sense of payback, given that the truck had spent the whole movie attacking David Mann. The network executives however were not satisfied with the truck's decent so they did request Speilberg to re do it with the truck exploding, but Speilberg fought them back and the ending was kept as it was. Good thing too! Also I heard in the movie's documentary that the movie was inspired by an event in reality when the original author and his friend were chased and tailgated by a huge truck on their way home from a golfing club. There were also instances where other people experienced similar events on the road, for instance there have been times where truck drives waved cars past when other vehicles were coming from the opposite directions. There was apparently an incident where a bycicle almost waved me past him on a corner when an oncoming car was coming.
"Is that him? Is that him? Are we finally going to see him?" You focused on the truck driver more than any reviewer or critic I've ever heard/read. Ironic, because most people saw DUEL as a monster movie, especially near the end. The truck driver's existence was nearly superfluous. One of the main reasons Spielberg decided to take on JAWS was that the reminded him of DUEL, with an evil truck instead of a shark. This was a staple of 1970s TV, the "made-for-TV movie." Basically someone realized that if you added a few more minutes to an hour-long TV episode -- you had a movie, for a fraction of the budget. It is a genre in itself, and whole books have been written about TV movies. Some of my favorites are THE NIGHT STALKER, THE NIGHT STRANGLER, GARGOYLES, ISN'T IT SHOCKING, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, TRILOGY OF TERROR and others -- many scripted by Richard Matheson. The "theatrical" version of DUEL released in Europe was 90 minutes or so long, compared to 73 minutes for the TV slot. The interaction of Mann with his wife was one of the added scenes. In the original novelette by Richard Matheson, it is hinted that the local people of the small town and restaurant know perfectly well about the killer truck driver --- and protect him in a conspiracy of silence. Why, we don't find out. All sorts of material has been written on this movie; you'd think it WAS the biggest movie hit of all time instead of an over-long TV episode filling a Tuesday night slot. That it was "Machismo vs. 'Mechanismo'," that Mann is a wimpy product of modern civilization who starts "Manning up" at last (Dennis Weaver himself complained that the role made him look like a milquetoast); that it shows how an intelligent [i.e., civilized] person can outwit and defeat the most powerful foe; and the opposite, that David Mann practically devolves back to the jungle, capering above the wrecked truck like a caveman who's killed a woolly mammoth . . . In some versions of the film, the truck crashes in relative silence (except crashes and clangs). Others dub in the same "dinosaur roar" heard at the end of JAWS (when the remains of the blown up shark glide down into the depths). Again, the truck itself is the antagonist, killed at last by the hero; going out, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
"Back in the day" I had a couple stations I listened to, or recorded tapes with songs from the radio. Also some of what he experienced from the truck driver in the movie, is some of what I experience from car drivers. Going slow, till I try to pass, then suddenly speeding up, or cutting in front of me to prevent me from passing. Passing, cutting in front, then slowing down. Car drivers like to play games with trucks.
Fun facts about the film: Richard Matheson got the idea for the story after an encounter with a semi truck. He was playing golf with a friend and they heard about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on the radio. So, they decided to cut the golfing trip short and drive home. A semi truck started tailgating Matheson's car, and almost ran him off the road. Though the film is credited to be "based on a short story", Matheson actually written the script for the story first and shopped it around Hollywood. No one was interested in the story, so he reworked it to be a short story, which was then published in Playboy Magazine. As a result of this, it got the attention of an assistant that worked at Universal Studios, and she recommended that Steven Spielberg read the short (and was informed that it was being considered as a TV movie). Spielberg, who had only done TV show episodes at that point (including the first episode of the series Columbo), and the producer of the TV movie agreed to let Spielberg shoot it. Dennis Weaver, who plays Mann, did his own stunt driving with the exception of certain scenes (despite him wanting to do all of them). Spielberg insisted that the film be shot out on location, despite Universal wanting him to film plates and film the scenes with Weaver on a sound stage using rear-projection. With the Line Producer, he made a deal that if he could shoot plates for the first two days on time and under budget, that they'd allow him to film the rest of the film out on location with a ten day shooting schedule. Spielberg went over schedule by two days, but the Line Producer was impressed with how Spielberg was able to get a lot of the film shot in the amount of time he was given, but conceded that there was no way possible to have done the filming in ten days). A dinosaur roar from a 1930s dinosaur movie is used when the truck goes over the edge (it can be heard playing twice, once after the truck first goes over the cliff and again when the tanker trailer comes out of the dust). It was meant to make it seem like the truck was a monster and it was dying. Spielberg reused the dinosaur sound in Jaws in the scene after the shark is killed. He even placed it in the same kind of moment (when the shark's fin comes out of the pool of blood briefly, a moment similar to when the tanker truck came out of the dust). He did it as a "thank you" to Duel for starting him on his path in filmmaking. The truck's dive off the cliff was actually recorded with multiple cameras, but the shot seen was done with one camera and the camera happened to catch the tanker trailer emerging from the dust (which was not planned). Spielberg liked it so much he chose that to be the main shot for the truck's "death" scene. In the original short story, the truck's tanker was filled with fuel and explodes, but for the film, Spielberg chose to have the truck actually being ran "dry" (without the tanker filled without any liquid). Also, the truck couldn't go any faster than 30 miles an hour. Spielberg was able to cheat it to make it looking like it was going faster by using low angels and using the environment (such as cliff faces on the side of the road) to give the sense it was going way faster than it was. The truck has several notiches in the headlights. That is the count of victims that the Truck Driver has had prior to encountering Mann. The license plates shown on the front bumper are where the other states that the Driver has driven other victims down. The Pest Control car that Mann mistaken as a police car has Spielberg's last name on it, in reverse. Stephen King is a fan of this movie and Matheson's short story. He and his son, Joe Hill, wrote a short story that was in a collection of short stories in honor of Matheson called "He Is Legend." The short story King and Hill written that is inspired by Duel is called Throttle.
I always loved Dennis Weaver as an actor. Saw this movie when it came on tv when I was 10. People always look down on made for tv movies but we had some really great ones back on the day. 2 of my favorite westerns were made for tv movies. The Sacketts and The Shadow Riders.
What's unfortunate is how increasingly difficult it is to get the original audio from online. When the truck went off cliff it had a creepier roar sound effect to it.
The truck didn't explode because the trailer tank was empty! And that's part of the reason why the truck was able to hit high speeds because it didn't have a lot of weight to pull! This was a ABC movie of the week made for television! I was just a kid watching this movie with my dad back in the 70's! This movie was release to theaters later with extra footage
I could be wrong, but I think in that shot of the truck going off the cliff, they ACTUALLY filmed a REAL TRUCK going over the cliff! The driver was actually in the truck barreling towards the cliff and he jumped out of the truck moments before the dive! If you look closely, you can see the driver side door wide open during the slow motion fall!
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Finally someone reacted to this! It's such a great flick, and Dennis Weaver does a great job holding down what is basically a one-man show!
There’s literally a dozen other reactions😂😂😂 Like did you even try to search?
This was a tv movie, with all the budget and content limitations that implies, and it STILL kicks ass. Just goes to show that talent really does make a big difference.
I remember i was dressed to go out for the night when Duel came on my TV, it held my attention immediately and the night out was forgotten.
IN Europe the Movie came in Theaters.
My buddy and I caught this about 15 minutes into it, on TV in the middle of the night this one night when we were about 18 years old in 1995. It is a night I will always remember. We had no idea what we were watching, and we couldn't believe what we were seeing. Great movie. 👍
Bro I have a similar story. Was just me though, was probably 2002, 16 years old just getting into smoking weed, had a shitty crt tv in my room went outside and smoked a joint, came back in this movie was just starting at like midnight. Watched the whole thing in awe. Still holds a spot in my heart. Great flick.
This movie is like JAWS but with a truck. Steven Spielberg said in an interview that "these are two leviathans that would haunt an everyman, like our character played by Dennis Weaver."
I like Duel better than Jaws personally because it feels like it could actually happen as oppose to a Shark seeking revenge since sharks don't act nearly that aggressive all the time. People on the road however can get crazy....
Well, it's not unknown for a shark to enjoy a bunch of teenagers as a tasty meal.
It's not really like jaws at all. In Jaws they go after the leviathan shark, in Duel its a man pursued by someone for no apparent reason.
@@benfisher1376 yeah, however there were many times when David could've Just turned around and went home but he choose to duel the semi truck instead. Amazingly he won
@@henrynegro8397 turn around and have it still follow him??
Writer Richard Mattheson said that so many people came up to him on set saying that they've experienced something like this movie's premise.
In fact Matheson wrote a short story based on his personal experience: he an a friend were tailgated by a huge truck while coming back from a golf game in the very day President Kennedy was murdered.
Yesss, someone reacted to this film! It's literally the movie that showed Spielberg's talent as a thriller director. Before Jaws, there was this.
A made for TV Movie that was so good they added some scenes at re released it in the theaters . It was a classic that showed how good Spielberg was with little to no budget .
I saw this on TV when it premiered, which I think was in November 1971. I was 3 years old. For some reason, when the truck went over the edge at the end of the movie I started laughing hysterically, so much so that my babysitter got scared and had to ask me if I was laughing or crying.
The movie was filmed up in Acton, on the other side of the mountains just north of Pasadena where we lived. The laundromat isn't there anymore, but I believe the restaurant is.
Great choice. This was a made for TV movie, not a theater release & I saw it at the time. Spielberg said in an interview he had considered setting the truck on fire but decided against it-- he wanted viewers to experience the truck as a menacing monster dying. He also mentioned he wanted the ending to be realistic. After such an experience, the man is alone....It made a huge impression on me back in the day.
Incredible movie. Spielberg is a genius and he was only 24 when he made this!
YES! This movie played ENDLESSLY on TV as a kid. One of my favorites.
"Never give a trucker an even break" is an episode from the old 70s Incredible Hulk series which uses a lot of footage from this movie which Spielberg wasn't too happy about.
not seeing the driver beyond his arm makes the tuck the monster, no Duel no Jaws...
I had a trucker driver try to kill me in a road rage incident a lot like this for real. He was high on meth at the time. Chased me for several kms and then tried to run me off the motorway with his trailers. He was charged and plead guilty. Apparently it was his third road rage incident that week that was reported. I was the only one he tried to kill though. When I saw him coming for me I immediately thought of this film. Surreal.
Spielberg started out in TV. He did many episodes of TV shows in the early 70s including the pilot for Columbo. Duel was a made for TV movie and is, technically, his first film. It got theatrical release in Europe but not in America. He did a couple of more TV movies, which I haven't seen. His first theatrical release, in America anyway, was Sugarland Express which you should definitely check out. It's a nifty, little film.
I grew up in the 80s and radio was very different then. We may have had less options but more variety. The radio stations that played popular music played all kinds of music not just one genre. I could listen to Prince followed by Depeche Mode followed by Run DMC followed by R.E.M. (and I have no idea if those names mean anything to you). Those radio stations that specialized in a genre would go into deep cuts and DJs had more discretion on what to play. Not to mention the college radio stations. Then in the 90's Clinton deregulated the industry which meant monopolization. I think there is basically one corporation that owns the majority of radio stations now, iHeartMedia, Inc. So there is very little variety regardless of where you're listening from. I stopped listening to radio in the early 2000s when I got an iPod.
Spielberg's episode of Columbo was Murder by the Book, which was not the pilot, but the first regular episode. There were two pilot episodes before that. A few seasons in, a kid in another episode was called "Steve Spelburg" as a homage. 😊
I remember seeing this on TV. Dennis Weaver had been playing Chester, the comic relief on Gunsmoke.
The fact this was Spielberg's first film is amazing.
DUEL is older than Jaws, but it STILL terrifies people! This is a very unconventional thriller, because it takes place in mostly broad daylight, we never see the "killer"/driver, and there's just this sense of tension and paranoia the whole time, it's SO EFFECTIVE!
Duel put Spielberg on the map in a big way for such a small film with a simple premise: motorist gets stalked by truck driver.
Spielberg paid homage to this film in several of his other films. The gas station with the snakes was used in "1941" and the sound of the truck going off the cliff was used when the shark dies in "Jaws".
MUNICH, from 2005, is a great Spielberg film. Dark, multi-faceted, very mature.
I saw this soooo many years ago. I am going to enjoy rewatching this.🙂
Only a few months ago I had a large truck just move into my lane on top of me without warning. I had to nearly slam the brakes to avoid being hit. I honked and flipped him off, which I felt was justified.
Moved to the left lane and sped up to pass, as I do he looks me dead in the eyes. Then after I get back in front of him (didn't cut him off or flip him off again just normal passing) he goes to the left lane, speeds up, and then does the same thing again this time no question it was intentional, nearly rammed me into the barrier. Don't know wtf his problem was.
Who wrote the screenplay? The legendary Richard Matheson, based on one of his short stories. For more details on his work look him up.
I love this movie it's very good, Why is Hollywood no longer making good movies like this one?
33:49 Mann was totally drained by the end. He was just soaking in the serenity.
Enjoyed your review. So I'm gonna give you something to look at :
Type in : Duel (1971) - A Conversation with Steven Spielberg
In this documentary Spielberg reveals all about how an unknown TV director pulled this masterpiece off ! And also he reveals how much of an ordinary little TV movie it would gave turned out to be in the hands of an 'ordinary TV director' ~ who wouldn't dare to challenge the producers like Spielberg did ~
It's very interesting ! Believe me.
"Land of Enchantment" is still the slogan on New Mexico's license plates.
Spielberg's short film "Amblin'" is on TH-cam and he named Amblin Entertainment after it. Also watch "The Sugarland Express" and you have seen the pre-"Jaws" films. IMDB also lists the movies he made with his Super 8 camera as a kid, which you likely saw in whatever Spielberg documentary you watched. J.J. Abrams sort of gave a nod to that with the movie "Super 8."
Love this movie. No one ever knows of it. I think it should be more famous love you
Stephen king, "Christine". The car movie, you won't regret it.
I like the little detail showing all the license plates he's collected from other people he's done this to.
Most trucks that travels from state to state would need to have multiple licence plates, at least back then.
Yeah IIRC even Steven Spielberg got that point wrong when he was talking about them being trophies when really it was cos trucks that operated across multiple states had to display valid license plates for each state. I think they just use stickers now.
@@stuartwesthall well considering Steven Spielberg is the Director I’m gonna go by what he says about the truck.
I wish more people new about this classic
That was really Dennis Weaver in the phone booth as the truck came at him. It wasn't a stuntman. If something went wrong, Dennis would have died. If you rewatch Jaws, at the end as the shark drops down as it dies, you can hear the sound of the truck "dying" mixed into the sound.
Also, the truck is still at the bottom of that canyon to this day. :)
No....the truck and trailer and car were all hauled out with a crane and sent to the junkyard after filming
people just love to think the wreckage is still there - it’s long gone without a trace
I was this when it was first broadcast and was riveted.
31:15 Not showing the driver makes the truck itself the villain and gives it a personality of its' own.
Under rated: "Empire of the Sun".
So happy you reacted to this movie. There is so much to love in Spielberg's debut effort as a movie director. I watched the original TV premiere of the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson, perhaps the greatest writer of sci-fi and horror short stories of the 20th century, and also one of Stephen King's favorite authors.
I love the fact that the truck never blows up. That hoary movie trope has been done to death, and Spielberg was wise not to give in to such an obvious denouement.
A couple of fun facts about Duel: The pest control truck that initially looked like a police car was labeled Grebleips Pest Control, Grebleips being Spielberg spelled backwards.
Spielberg had multiple cameras set up the capture the truck going over the cliff, but one cameraman dutifully followed the truck all the way down, and no other camera angles were necessary.
When the truck falls down the cliff, Spielberg wanted a dinosaur roar to accompany the truck driver's defeat. That very same dinosaur roar was used again in Jaws when the shark's fin reappears in the cloud of blood at the end of that film.
Spielberg was only given 10 days to shoot his movie and was told he should use process shots (filming in front of a film clip of the passing landscape to indicate the action on the highway) as opposed to filming on location. But Spielberg was stubborn and filmed on the highway. He went two or three days over budget but got excellent footage, as you saw for yourself.
I really love it when reactors like you dive into not just a director's most famous works but also their beginnings to see how far their talents have led them.
On that same topic, might you be interested in watching John Carpenter's first movie that was filmed when he was a film student? Called "Dark Star," it's a sci-fi comedy he co wrote with Dan O'Bannon, who wrote the screenplay to Alien.
Looking forward to more reactions from you. Keep up the good work.
Dark Star is such a campy spoofy space parody/satire. It makes Red Dwarf look like Masterpiece Theatre.
@07:33 "dehumanizes the truck driver too" Exactly, it could be any driver, any truck, anywhere in the world at any time.
One of Spielbergs best movies.
I would have turned around after that first confrontation. Bought a six pack of beer and checked into a cheap hotel. :-)
I saw this movie in the cinema back when it came out. I was impressed, especially for a new director, and thought to remember Spielberg's name for any other movies that he might make in the future.
I read in another comment that this movie was not released in the cinemas in the USA, only on TV. I saw it in the Netherlands, Europe.
It was a made for TV movie that was part of ABC's "MOVIE of the WEEK" series in 1971. I know because we watched it the night it was on. I was 24 years old and newly married at the time. It wasn't a theatrical release, unless it was shown years later in some theaters. It was on TV reruns for quite awhile after the initial "MOVIE of THE WEEK,
@@patticrichton1135 extra scenes were added for a theatrical release in Europe
Hey, Thor, since you asked, yes, I saw it in the theater in France in 1973, when it first came out, and I was tremendously impressed. "Duel" was the first film I saw solo with the woman who would become my wife. We'd gone to two previous films as part of a group of friends, but this was what we chose for our very first actual date. Make of that what you will! (Fortunately, it acquired no metaphoric weight.) The big screen suited it, and we were gripped and horrified.
Great choice! No one is doing this movie, but they should be!!
Wow I remember back as a young lady watching thus on the Sunday night movie on channel 7 ABC
Duel was made for TV aka "movíe of the week" sort of thing. The other one that came out on TV as a 2 or 3 parter was "Salem's Lot". Not Spielberg but it is a Stephen King several part "special event".
Oh "back in the day" the only option was the car radio. Not even a walkman. You could try reading in the back seat if you were a kid but would be told it was "bad for your eyes".
Land of Enchantment on a license plate is for New Mexico. Being alone on a highway out west was pretty common back then. I had car trouble in Utah and had to wait till Monday to go to "the foreign car place" for my Toyota 🙂
The Stephen King one is "Christine".
Finally someone reacts to DUEL! 🙌 Great movie and great reaction!
And yes, I also think the fact the driver was never really shown makes it even more scary. It's like some monster, unknown, pure evil - in shape of a big truck. Also the way it looks, dirty, rusty, all of that.. and yes, the camera work also adds a lot. My family and I used to watch this movie every now and then when it was shwon on TV back then. We also had it recorded on VHS. Good ol' times. :D
The studio wanted the truck to explode but he decided against it. He wanted the truck to die slowly.
Whether intentional or not, the fact that the truck *didn't* explode makes the whole situation even more sinister -- was he just driving around in an empty tanker just looking to bump someone off?
@@andygriffith5160..yes...he was a serial killer that was murdering innocent drivers all across the country.
There is a movie called “Christine”about a killer Plymouth fury I believe 😋 classic movie also!
A gem.
Did anyone notice that when the truck plunges to its demise, the driver's side door is open?
Like, did the driver jump off of the truck before the cliff?
When I saw this movie as a kid I noticed that and was expecting the truck driver to come up behind the car driver and push him off the cliff.
Okay, you have keen eyes. I didn't notice it when I saw it on the television when I was like, I dunno, 12-13 yrs old.
Absolutely loved it.
I agree with you, now I feel like he would be alive, but the movie makers made us guessing what would happen next...
Yeah, apparently the truck's door is open because the stunt driver literally did jump out before the truck went off the cliff.
It's based on a story (published in _Playboy_ magazine, which featured a lot of quality fiction at the time) by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay. Matheson wrote some of the best episodes of _The Twilight Zone_ and _Star Trek_ , among other things. This theatrical release is a longer edit than the one originally made as a network TV movie.
I have some contrarian opinions about a few of Spielberg's popular films, but for overlooked Spielberg I have to plug _Empire of the Sun_ , a WWII drama based on JG Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel about his childhood in Shanghai, abruptly interrupted by the Japanese invasion of China. Starring Christian Bale in his first big role at the age of 12, and some great British and American supporting actors--Nigel Havers and Miranda Richardson as fellow internees, and Joe Pantoliano and John Malkovich as captured American smugglers.
Duel is one of the few things I actually *ahem* read in Playboy (that and a few Shel Silverstein things). It was creepy on paper. Spielberg, before I knew who Spielberg was, made it just as creepy on film. But I buy into your contrarian opinions about Spielberg. He's either hit or miss for me, rather like James Cameron. Empire of the Sun I'll agree is a bit more toward the hit end of the spectrum.
Rarely did a made for television movie of the week get a theatrical release (in Europe and Asia) and get cult classic following for those of us seeing back in the 1970's, either as a re-airing or as a mid-day Saturday afternoon airing on an "Action Theatre" broadcast. This movie allowed Spielberg to cut hit teeth and sharpen them for Jaws a year later. In fact, their is a parallel kinship between the two movies. The demise of the truck and the shark share similar style. And a certain music sound cue used.
(The movie used a tag axle 1955 Peterbilt 281, making it looking like a Peterbilt 351, with two rear axles. The truck had a CAT 1674 turbocharged engine with a 13-speed transmission, making it capable of hauling loads over 30 tons and top speeds reaching 75-80 mph.)
The Peterbilt 281 used in the film had a 1673 Cat Engine
Now that you have seen this you have to watch Maximum Overdrive
Omg yes please watch Stephen Kings “killer car movie”. It’s call Christine. It’s a John Carpenter movie too! The score is amazing
I remember the first time watching this movie back when I was still in grade school maybe 2nd or 3rd grade somewhere between 1979 to 1981. I had gotten home from school since school let out at 3PM in the afternoon and it was on television I think maybe the 4 o'clock movie. I was between 8 to 10 years of age and remember being pretty scared by it.
I have always liked ths film and that you never see the driver. Although this is the first time I have realised that the truck has a few different numberplates on the front that are probably trophies from previous kills and shows this is not the first time he has done this.
Multiple license plates on trucks was/is a thing. Basically it's a separate registration to haul freight in different states. I don't know enough about it to say if this is the case with that vehicle, but it is pretty cool to go with the trophy theory.
@@StCerberusEngel I’ve read about the trophy theory. Like notches on a shotgun.
@@rickardroach9075 It does make sense. But I know a lot of freight trucks had multiple plates for different states. Not sure what the intention there was, but it's a nice detail.
I love this movie and it's awesome to see someone react to it. You know, I've always wondered if the older couple David Mann asks for help before the truck begins to back up toward them are connected to the scene in Back to the Future when Marty asks that older couple in their car for help while wearing his hazmat suit and the lady tells her husband "Don't stop, Wilbur! Drive!" I've always wondered if that BttF scene is referencing Duel.
always enjoyed this movie no matter how many times I watch it, the camera work, the editing, building the suspense
It's pretty damned good, especially for a tv movie. Another one, much in the same vein as this one is "Road Games" (1981) starring Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Stacy Keach was also in another great tv truck movie called Revenge On the Highway aka Silent Thunder.
I’m glad to see someone react to this movie. As you can tell from the comments, you’ve made a lot of people happy.
Thank you for reacting to this movie it's one of my all time favs and nobody reacts to!! 👊 Rumour has it that all the license plates on the front of the truck are from previous people that the truck driver has killed. Also the studio wanted the truck to blow up at the end but Spielberg said find another director to do that, it's not as effective as giving the truck a slow and painful death.
The old couple in the car are the same ones from back to the future. Plus, the end scene was done in one take and the camera shot following the truck was done perfectly. and the part where the tank is twisting around in the dust is just how the movie jaws ends as what's left of the shark as it twists in a cloud of blood. Also, the multiple plates on the trucks reenforced front bumper kind of hints at a long reign of terror. It is a classic of putting you in the Pov. Yes, there is also the movie the car 1977 and Christine.
About the license plates - I keep reading people speculating about whether they're the plates of past victims, when in fact trucks that travelled across multiple states had to be licensed in each of those states and therefore had to display multiple plates. As far as I know those interstate licensing rules still apply today but trucks just display stickers instead.
This was an original made for TV movie that was never meant to go to the theater despite later they did release it in the theaters. It was made on a shoe string budget that was shot within approx. 1 month. The sound the truck made while falling down the cliff was reused by Spielberg for his Jaws movie when it was finally killed by the compressed tank explosion and sank into the depths but Spielberg altered that sound for the Jaws movie. This movie was so good it keeps you on the edge of your seat through it's entire length.
This would be on tv when i was like 6 or 7 and i woukd watch with my dad and it scared the crap outta me! Such a great movie!
I was only 11 or 12 when this movie was on tv. I am 61 now so Spielberg must have been just a college kid when he made this.
Seen this classic a few times and know the ending, STILL sat here with sweaty palms watching, that's how good Spielberg is
Before this originally made for tv movie Duel and I think his first theatrical release movie was The Sugarland Express Steven Spielberg directed television shows like Columbo and Night Gallery. Night Gallery was created by Rod Serling which ran on television mostly in the very early 70s between the pilot episode that aired in Nov. 1969 through the series beginning in Dec. 1970 through May 1973. As a matter of fact he was probably directing Columbo and Night Gallery when he directed Duel. I think however the movie that really put him on the map was peobably Jaws since that's the movie he is probably mostly known for.
I love listening to the radio in my car. I listen to both music and news.
Saw this in our 9th grade English class back in the 80s as well as Cool Hand Luke. We were discussing Symbolism in film. Whenever I drove to the river or Vegas I would always think about this movie. By us not seeing the driver, it was way more terrifying.
Maximum overdrive is a must, Christine,also
Christine is the name of the Stephen King movie about the car -- Its pretty good too --- Did you notice all the different car license plates? -- I know back in the day (and maybe even still) Semi drivers had different plates for different states but on this truck it looked like kill trophy's -- also because the truck didnt explode it means the driver is still out there awaiting the next guy with a new truck --- Another Spielberg masterpiece is The Color Purple -- Its wonderful
You see the driver's blood dripping in the truck. Definitely dead since the idea is that he's one w/ that vehicle.
Long-time Duel-fan here, excellent reaction/commentary! Love how you picked all the right scenes 😊 Basically it's about coming accross, recognizing, confronting and fighting a/your demon/s. Richard Matheson wrote this and decided it's time to do someting about his own sruggles with alcohol.
This is Steven Spielberg's first major movie! Before Duel Steven Spielberg did shorts for night gallery and he did some TV shows like columbo so Duel is his first movie! And because dual was a hit he got the chance to make Jaws!
This was an ABC move of the week. The next day in high school this movie is all anyone wanted to talk about. Many directors in the 1970s cut their teeth on television’s movies of the week.
I saw this when it first aired on TV. Spielberg was a young man who was directing the odd TV episode here and there. They gave him a chance, with a small budget and a tight schedule. He used multiple cameras to cover every shot. Much of the chase was done on one section of road up and back with 3 (I think) cameras. That's 6 camera angles to work with. Most of the tension comes from the editing of those shots into short clips with quick cuts. My favorite shot in the whole movie is when he comes around the bend and stops in the middle of the road, and then the camera pulls back to reveal the truck's undercarriage.
A brilliant film & it was Made for TV! So tense and you NEVER see the truck driver. You do not need a busy script, OTT action, people coming back from the dead at the end…..less is most definitely more.
I genuinely love that throughout the movie we are expecting the "Flammable" truck to explode, and then at the end...it doesn't. Normally that would be anticlimactic, but here it's a refreshing subversion of the cliche.
Good point. Having "Flammable" on it makes the truck more intimidating. I imagine that that's all that mattered to Spielberg.
Duel movie in November 13,1971. When the David mann was going up the new road hill.
Yes this is a little Spielberg gem. A very simple and focused premise well executed.
Not sure if it was mentioned before but there's the theory that the many different license plates on his front bumper indicate that the truck driver is a serial killer and the license plates are the trophies from his previous victims he ran off the road.
So it seems that it wasn't road rage but a serial killer hunting down his newest victim.
One of the most interesting and amazing things about Duel is the lack of dialogue througout the piece. I feel it just highlights more the talent of Spielberg's directing even at such a young age. And of course Dennis Weaver's talent of acting since in Duel he had to carry 90 something percent of the movie.
33:05 Nah, the silence is eerie, the way the wheel stops spinning as the truck slowly "dies". It would be like the De Lorean exploding when hit by the train. Too cliched.
34:32 I didn't see it at the cinema (I was 6 when it was made) but we watched it on TV every time it played. It was a family favourite.
This has been one of my and my Dad's favorite movie since the early 70's. We'd always watch it when it came on TV. It gave me a childhood fear of gasoline tanker trucks, and where I grew up, busy route 1 bisected our little town. Hence, many gasoline tanker trucks to cause me great angst. LOL
YES! Hell yeah. I've been waiting for this.
Dennis Weaver was such a great actor back in the day. This is one of my favorite films. The fact that you never see the driver is a plus.
You know, I was one of the many expecting the truck to explode as it went over the cliff, but I think the way they did it with the slow and painful decent was far better. You see Spielberg belived it was better to show the truck painfully dieing in this way so we could have a sense of payback, given that the truck had spent the whole movie attacking David Mann. The network executives however were not satisfied with the truck's decent so they did request Speilberg to re do it with the truck exploding, but Speilberg fought them back and the ending was kept as it was. Good thing too!
Also I heard in the movie's documentary that the movie was inspired by an event in reality when the original author and his friend were chased and tailgated by a huge truck on their way home from a golfing club. There were also instances where other people experienced similar events on the road, for instance there have been times where truck drives waved cars past when other vehicles were coming from the opposite directions. There was apparently an incident where a bycicle almost waved me past him on a corner when an oncoming car was coming.
When the truck went over the cliff in slow motion the slow sound of the crash sounded like a monster dieing
"Is that him? Is that him? Are we finally going to see him?" You focused on the truck driver more than any reviewer or critic I've ever heard/read. Ironic, because most people saw DUEL as a monster movie, especially near the end. The truck driver's existence was nearly superfluous. One of the main reasons Spielberg decided to take on JAWS was that the reminded him of DUEL, with an evil truck instead of a shark.
This was a staple of 1970s TV, the "made-for-TV movie." Basically someone realized that if you added a few more minutes to an hour-long TV episode -- you had a movie, for a fraction of the budget. It is a genre in itself, and whole books have been written about TV movies. Some of my favorites are THE NIGHT STALKER, THE NIGHT STRANGLER, GARGOYLES, ISN'T IT SHOCKING, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, TRILOGY OF TERROR and others -- many scripted by Richard Matheson. The "theatrical" version of DUEL released in Europe was 90 minutes or so long, compared to 73 minutes for the TV slot. The interaction of Mann with his wife was one of the added scenes.
In the original novelette by Richard Matheson, it is hinted that the local people of the small town and restaurant know perfectly well about the killer truck driver --- and protect him in a conspiracy of silence. Why, we don't find out.
All sorts of material has been written on this movie; you'd think it WAS the biggest movie hit of all time instead of an over-long TV episode filling a Tuesday night slot. That it was "Machismo vs. 'Mechanismo'," that Mann is a wimpy product of modern civilization who starts "Manning up" at last (Dennis Weaver himself complained that the role made him look like a milquetoast); that it shows how an intelligent [i.e., civilized] person can outwit and defeat the most powerful foe; and the opposite, that David Mann practically devolves back to the jungle, capering above the wrecked truck like a caveman who's killed a woolly mammoth . . .
In some versions of the film, the truck crashes in relative silence (except crashes and clangs). Others dub in the same "dinosaur roar" heard at the end of JAWS (when the remains of the blown up shark glide down into the depths). Again, the truck itself is the antagonist, killed at last by the hero; going out, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Shout out to Billy Goldenberg's masterful score! Those piano chords when the truck's lights are seen in the tunnel.
"Back in the day" I had a couple stations I listened to, or recorded tapes with songs from the radio.
Also some of what he experienced from the truck driver in the movie, is some of what I experience from car drivers. Going slow, till I try to pass, then suddenly speeding up, or cutting in front of me to prevent me from passing. Passing, cutting in front, then slowing down. Car drivers like to play games with trucks.
29:25 _Duel_ appeared in the April 1971 _Playboy_ magazine as a short story by Richard Matheson (yes, it's not just pictures).
Not as well known as it should be. Great movie.
I've had far more duels in my day than I care to admit.
I can't believe it! I've never seen a reaction to this movie. Thanks!
Fun facts about the film: Richard Matheson got the idea for the story after an encounter with a semi truck. He was playing golf with a friend and they heard about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on the radio. So, they decided to cut the golfing trip short and drive home. A semi truck started tailgating Matheson's car, and almost ran him off the road. Though the film is credited to be "based on a short story", Matheson actually written the script for the story first and shopped it around Hollywood. No one was interested in the story, so he reworked it to be a short story, which was then published in Playboy Magazine. As a result of this, it got the attention of an assistant that worked at Universal Studios, and she recommended that Steven Spielberg read the short (and was informed that it was being considered as a TV movie). Spielberg, who had only done TV show episodes at that point (including the first episode of the series Columbo), and the producer of the TV movie agreed to let Spielberg shoot it.
Dennis Weaver, who plays Mann, did his own stunt driving with the exception of certain scenes (despite him wanting to do all of them). Spielberg insisted that the film be shot out on location, despite Universal wanting him to film plates and film the scenes with Weaver on a sound stage using rear-projection. With the Line Producer, he made a deal that if he could shoot plates for the first two days on time and under budget, that they'd allow him to film the rest of the film out on location with a ten day shooting schedule. Spielberg went over schedule by two days, but the Line Producer was impressed with how Spielberg was able to get a lot of the film shot in the amount of time he was given, but conceded that there was no way possible to have done the filming in ten days).
A dinosaur roar from a 1930s dinosaur movie is used when the truck goes over the edge (it can be heard playing twice, once after the truck first goes over the cliff and again when the tanker trailer comes out of the dust). It was meant to make it seem like the truck was a monster and it was dying. Spielberg reused the dinosaur sound in Jaws in the scene after the shark is killed. He even placed it in the same kind of moment (when the shark's fin comes out of the pool of blood briefly, a moment similar to when the tanker truck came out of the dust). He did it as a "thank you" to Duel for starting him on his path in filmmaking.
The truck's dive off the cliff was actually recorded with multiple cameras, but the shot seen was done with one camera and the camera happened to catch the tanker trailer emerging from the dust (which was not planned). Spielberg liked it so much he chose that to be the main shot for the truck's "death" scene. In the original short story, the truck's tanker was filled with fuel and explodes, but for the film, Spielberg chose to have the truck actually being ran "dry" (without the tanker filled without any liquid). Also, the truck couldn't go any faster than 30 miles an hour. Spielberg was able to cheat it to make it looking like it was going faster by using low angels and using the environment (such as cliff faces on the side of the road) to give the sense it was going way faster than it was.
The truck has several notiches in the headlights. That is the count of victims that the Truck Driver has had prior to encountering Mann. The license plates shown on the front bumper are where the other states that the Driver has driven other victims down.
The Pest Control car that Mann mistaken as a police car has Spielberg's last name on it, in reverse.
Stephen King is a fan of this movie and Matheson's short story. He and his son, Joe Hill, wrote a short story that was in a collection of short stories in honor of Matheson called "He Is Legend." The short story King and Hill written that is inspired by Duel is called Throttle.
One of the greatest movies Ever!
I always loved Dennis Weaver as an actor. Saw this movie when it came on tv when I was 10. People always look down on made for tv movies but we had some really great ones back on the day. 2 of my favorite westerns were made for tv movies. The Sacketts and The Shadow Riders.
What's unfortunate is how increasingly difficult it is to get the original audio from online. When the truck went off cliff it had a creepier roar sound effect to it.
g o o g l e: internet archive duel 1971 abc television version (original)
The truck didn't explode because the trailer tank was empty! And that's part of the reason why the truck was able to hit high speeds because it didn't have a lot of weight to pull! This was a ABC movie of the week made for television! I was just a kid watching this movie with my dad back in the 70's! This movie was release to theaters later with extra footage
For Stephen King killer car movies there is Maximum Overdrive and Christine, ones good and ones not so good.
I could be wrong, but I think in that shot of the truck going off the cliff, they ACTUALLY filmed a REAL TRUCK going over the cliff! The driver was actually in the truck barreling towards the cliff and he jumped out of the truck moments before the dive! If you look closely, you can see the driver side door wide open during the slow motion fall!