Like many young directors, Spielberg got his start in T.V. Working on a number of series from Marcus Welby M.D. to The Name of the Game and showing a cinematic eye throughout got Spielberg some early attention in the industry (that and perhaps a friendship with Universal head Sidney Sheinberg). When ABC acquired the rights to make a movie-of-the-week adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story Duel, he lobbied to direct it, having been attracted to the story’s sense of tension. It was a massive undertaking for a T.V. movie, requiring a ton of location shooting and thus a lot more production time before its airing a week after post. But Spielberg was up to the task, directing it as well as he could muster.
The result is considered by many to be one of the best T.V. movies ever made, and I have to agree. Though that may be for Richard Matheson’s script as much if not more than Spielberg’s budding skills as a filmmaker.
Returning home from a business trip across the California desert, David Mann (Dennis Weaver) is annoyed by a truck driver following and repeatedly overtaking him on the highway. However that mild irritation and road rage soon turns into fear when it becomes apparent the truck driver is intentionally stalking him and trying to kill him by any means necessary.
Many see this feature-length car chase as a precursor to Jaws, as Spielberg applies a lot of the same suspense techniques he’d later utilize in that film, most notably never showing the face of the truck driver to keep the villain of the film a mysterious entity. This was a characteristic of the book also, but Spielberg kept him hidden in creative ways to emphasize the vehicle itself as a kind of monster. He also employed Hitchcockian devices of terror and tension, such as playing up Mann’s suspicion when hiding out in the truck stop only for the driver to not actually be in there; or when the truck showed up after an absence as Mann was helping out the school bus. And it’s all effective. By clever use of low-angle and tracking shots to make the Peterbilt look intimidating, simulating rapid movement, and shooting on fierce and vacant locations with a car and truck designed to stand out, the atmosphere of isolation and no escape is conveyed terrifically. It really was the right choice to spend so much time and resources on this project, even for a movie-of-the-week, and Spielberg’s constant work and pressure to complete it on time is ultimately justified.
The cleverness of the film lies mostly in the concept. Matheson’s story demonstrated an almost Stephen King-like ability to tap into an everyday fear and extrapolate on it to its most frighteningly plausible conclusion. Personally, I used to commute to work and am still a fairly regular highway driver -I’ve driven alongside a hundred sizeable trucks like the one in Duel, and there is that ever-present paranoia at the fact that they can run you down with ease. In this way, anyone who’s done much long-distance highway driving can relate. As unsubtle as his characters’ name is, Weaver’s convinced fear reflects this excellently. Hand-picked by Spielberg for his performance in Touch of Evil, Weaver gives a great performance as this man driven to hysteria by his mysteriously hostile tormentor. This hysteria eventually turns into a kind of mad determination to beat his pursuer and it’s especially entertaining given the mild-mannered businessman he started the film out as. The incredibly simple premise doesn’t have a lot of nuance, and some audiences, like the execs at the time, may question its ability to sustain a feature. But for the most part, Spielberg is able to gradually build and keep it fresh for over an hour; from establishing the aggressor as merely annoying, to indicating in a great moment that he’s trying to kill Mann, to actively stalking him by waiting for hours around the corner from where Mann is hiding. In spite of the title this is a very one-sided conflict. As Matheson himself notes, the movie doesn’t actually become the duel of the title until the climax where Mann realizes the inevitability of the situation and is forced to confront his pursuer in a vehicular joust. And it’s shot and edited with finesse, emphasizing the quick thinking of Mann, the shock of the criminal driver by a couple mere cuts to his hands, and the grand though slightly over-the-top (the dying roar can’t help but come off a little silly) defeat.
The film doesn’t flow seamlessly though. So well-received was the T.V. airing that Universal decided to release it theatrically, and in order to do that they needed a roughly additional twenty minutes be shot. Things like the bus detour and the telephone box worked okay (though they still felt a little out of place by the mere presence of other characters in a very one-on-one plot). However the train tracks scene had no cohesion with anything else and actually felt like a comical sketch. The truck loses a bit of menace when its just nudging Mann’s car into a passing train to taunt him. The way it just drives off after this incident too makes the segment feel almost like a Roadrunner cartoon. Another choice that doesn’t work as well as hoped is the audience hearing Mann’s thoughts in the truck-stop restaurant. In fairness, it’s a somewhat necessary device and has worked in a number of films in the past, but either Weaver’s delivery, the editing, or some other factor keeps it from being as suspenseful as it should be. Elsewhere, Spielberg does handle the dialogue problem well -though Mann is required to talk to himself at times, it’s neither awkward nor forced. It’s perfectly justified given his terrified mental state.
Spielberg also used Duel to demonstrate his technical skill, well aware what the film could mean for his career. Meticulously plotting the geographical trajectory of shooting he went to some extreme lengths (especially for a TV movie) to get the right angle or shot. There was much pressure to capture the grand finale of the truck going off the cliff in one take and they nailed it. Spielberg’s always fancied himself an auteur, and for this movie he really did have a hand in every aspect of production and post. The sound design was excellent and his editing really paid off too. Likely as a result of this intense attention he gave it, Duel is very impressively made for a debut feature.
Duel established Spielberg’s interest in and skill at developing thrills. His knack for building tension is well-realized, as is his fascination with the unknown enigma, a theme which would recur in a lot of his most successful movies. ABC took quite a risk on this twenty-five year old one-time film school student, especially with all the concessions they had to make for him. But had they hired someone else to do the job easier, Duel would have been a forgotten piece of cheap television history that most likely would have been shot in a studio with fake backgrounds and stock footage. Spielberg’s eye and passion for filmmaking is what they needed; and what he needed too. Because anyone seeing Duel in 1971, either on the small or big screen, had to admit this was a director way too good for television.
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