Wow! What an amazing film. I love this so much, that part way through this viewing, I upped and ordered the 50th anniversary reissue DVD.
It’s a bit proto-Jaws – hence the clever homage image below – with an evil truck/trucker chasing down a hapless ‘ordinary Joe’. You barely see the driver: a quick glimpse, as vehicles pass; a hand, on the wheel; cowboy boots, as he walks behind the truck, kicking the tyres…
It’s the ol’ mystery multiplies menace gambit. And it works a treat. Playing on the minds of both the victimised car driver, and the viewer.
It starts with a realistic enough scenario, one driver – salesman Davis Mann (Dennis Weaver), in his Red Plymouth Valiant – overtakes another; the dirty ol’ smoke belching truck. The overtaker thereby dissing the gruntle of the overtakee… if you follow? And follow is exactly what the ne’erdowell truck/trucker does.
However, this plausible quotidian scenario rapidly escalates into something more akin to Greek Myth. Mann is Odysseus, who just wants to get home, and the Peterbilt 281 big-rig is the Cyclops, or Minotaur, Harpy, or whatever, that just won’t let up.
Dennis Weaver is absolutely pitch-perfect as the ‘70s Everyman… literally; David Mann. Initially just baffled, he soon gets properly discombobulated.
His name and circumstances also make the movie a study in Mann-hood. He’s had an argument with his wife; he needs to score a contract for work; and now? He’s suddenly in a life and death fight:
‘… all the ropes that kept you hanging in there get cut loose. And it’s like there you are, right back in the jungle again.’
In this battle to reclaim his manhood, I love the way everyday commonplace scenarios – a stop at petrol station, a Diner, trying to help a broken down school bus – all suddenly become extremely sinister and menacing. It really is great.
Spielberg’s eye for detail is phenomenal. The truck a – Peterbilt 281, so I’ve read – is phenomenal as an embodiment of unrelenting malevolence and evil. The red Plymouth is spot on – although I’ve read Spielberg actually didn’t care what make/type the car was, as long as it was red! – as the underpowered Everyman’s ride.
Every single location, from subarban garage, to city, arid landscape, diner, and so on, is right on the money. Spielberg displays a Hitchockian attribute; a natural seeming ability to weave everything together just so. The right look, the right location, the right camera angle, and so on.
From a strictly real-world logical point of view, aspects of the movie might not hold up to forensic analysis. But that would be to miss the point – or the magic – entirely.
Okay, Spielberg does gamely attempt to address such matters, for example during the diner scenes, with Mann’s internal monologues, etc. Or when he stops at the lizard lady’s place and attempts to call the police.
But really this is a film that’s much more like a mythical poem than humdrum kitchen sink reality. It only needs to hold together on its own terms. And it does. Beautifully.
Nowadays we have terms such as ‘road rage’, to describe similar (if usually more mundane, altho’ not necessarily less terrifying) scenarios. And, with depressing frequency, since 9/11, we read of planes, boats, trains, cars, trucks, buses, whatever, being repurposed as instruments of lethal execution.
But back to the film… the landscapes and the music are also part of the overall magic.* And Spielberg’s masterful decision not to have the truck full of flammable material explode? The mark of a master at work.
Originally limited to 75 minutes, due to its made for TV constraints, an extended 90 minute version was created, ‘toot-sweet’, for theatrical release. Such was the popularity of the TV show.
I’m not sure which format attained the distinction, but Duel won the 1972 Emmy for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Film Sound Editing.’ And you can hear why.
An unusually good review, marking the 50th anniversary of this film, can be read here.
Spielberg did this very soon after directing the superb Columbo episode Murder By The Book. He was already a master of directorial sleight of hand. Or should I say smoke and mirrors? There are plenty of those here:
All in all? Brilliant. Highly recommended.