Duel is a 1971 American road action thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg in his feature film debut. It centers on a traveling salesman David Mann (Dennis Weaver) driving his car through rural California to meet a client. However, he finds himself chased and terrorized by the mostly unseen driver of a semi-truck. The screenplay by Richard Matheson adapts his own short story of the same name, published in the April 1971 issue of Playboy, and based on an encounter on November 22, 1963, when a trucker dangerously cut him off on a California freeway.
Produced by Universal Television as a television film, Duel originally aired as a part of the ABC Movie of the Week series on November 13, 1971. It later received an international theatrical release by Universal Pictures (through Cinema International Corporation) in an extended version featuring scenes shot after the film's original TV broadcast. The film received positive reviews from critics, with Spielberg's direction being singled out for praise. It has since been recognized as an influential cult classic and one of the greatest television films ever made.
Plot David Mann is a middle-aged salesman driving on a business trip. He encounters a dilapidated tanker truck in the Mojave Desert. Mann passes the truck, but the truck roars past him. When Mann overtakes and passes it again, the truck blasts its horn. Mann pulls into a gas station, and shortly after the truck arrives and parks next to him. Mann refuses the station attendant's advice of replacing the radiator hose.
Back on the road, the truck catches up, passes, then blocks Mann whenever he attempts to pass. After antagonizing Mann for some time, the driver waves him past, but Mann nearly hits an oncoming vehicle. He then passes the truck using an unpaved turnout next to the highway. The truck tailgates Mann at increasingly high speeds. Mann crashes into a fence across from a diner. Mann enters the restaurant to compose himself and sees the truck parked outside. He confronts a patron he believes to be the truck driver. The offended patron beats Mann and leaves in a different truck. The pursuing truck leaves seconds later.
Mann resumes his trip and stops to help a stranded school bus, but his front bumper gets caught underneath the bus' rear bumper. The truck appears at the end of a nearby tunnel. Mann flees when the bus driver helps free his car, then stops at a railroad crossing for a freight train. The truck appears from behind and pushes Mann's car into the tracks just as the train clears the intersection. Mann rolls across the tracks and pulls over and the truck continues down the road. Mann slows his pace in hopes the truck will continue on its way, but he encounters it again on the side of the road, waiting for him, and it pulls out in front of him to continue harassing him.
Mann stops at a gas station/roadside animal attraction to call the police and replace his radiator hose. The truck drives into the phone booth and Mann jumps clear, gets into his car, and speeds away. He pulls off the road behind an embankment and the truck drives past. After a long wait, Mann heads off again, but the truck is waiting down the road and chases him up a mountain range. Mann's radiator hose breaks, and the car overheats. He barely makes the summit and rolls downhill with the truck in pursuit. Mann crashes into a cliff wall and barely escapes being crushed by the truck. He managed to limp the car up a dirt road and turns to face the truck in front of a canyon. Mann wedges his briefcase onto the accelerator and steers the car into the oncoming truck, jumping free at the last moment. The truck hits the car, which bursts into flames, and both vehicles plunge over the cliff. Above the canyon, Mann celebrates, then sits at the cliff's edge and throws stones down at the wreckage as the sun sets.
Cast
Dennis Weaver as David Mann Dale Van Sickel served as Weaver's stunt driver. Carey Loftin as Truck Driver Jacqueline Scott as Mrs. Mann Eddie Firestone as Café Owner Lou Frizzell as Bus Driver Eugene Dynarski as Man in Café Lucille Benson as Lady at Snakerama Tim Herbert as Gas Station Attendant Charles Seel as Old Man Shirley O'Hara as Waitress Amy Douglass as Old Woman in Car Alexander Lockwood as Old Man in Car Sweet Dick Whittington as Radio Interviewer
Production Development Richard Matheson adapted the script from his own short story, which was originally published in the April 1971 issue of Playboy magazine. Matheson got the inspiration for the story when he was tailgated by a trucker while on his way home from a golfing match, on the then two-lane Highway 126 in Fillmore, California, with friend Jerry Sohl on November 22, 1963, the same day as the John F. Kennedy assassination. After a series of attempts to pitch the idea as an episode for various television series, he decided to write it as a short story instead. In preparation for writing the story, he drove from his home to Ventura and recorded everything he saw on a tape recorder.
The original short story was given to Spielberg by his secretary Nona Tyson, who told him that it was being made into a Movie of the Week for ABC with producer George Eckstein, and she suggested he apply to be the director; she told Spielberg to read the story, which he liked.Duel: Special Edition DVD (2005) Duel was Spielberg's second feature-length directing effort, after "L.A. 2017", a 1971 episode of the NBC television series The Name of the Game. Spielberg showed Eckstein a rough cut of "Murder by the Book", an episode of Columbo directed by Spielberg that had not yet aired (it aired on September 15, 1971, two months before the release of Duel).
Much of the movie was filmed in and around the communities of Canyon Country, Agua Dulce, and Acton, California. In particular, sequences were filmed on the Sierra Highway, Agua Dulce Canyon Road, Soledad Canyon Road, and Angeles Forest Highway. Spielberg insisted on shooting outside, contrary to the request of unit production manager, Wallace Worsley, who felt that the film could not be shot efficiently on the budget and time provided. As a compromise, he allowed Spielberg to start the filming on location for the first three days to see if it really could be done on an efficient level. To help with plotting, he made an overhead map to help plot out the camera shots. Principal photography began on September 13, 1971. Shooting lasted 13 days. Three more days were needed for additional scenes.
Many of the landmarks from Duel still exist today, including the tunnel, the railroad crossing, and Chuck's Café, where Mann stops for a break. The café building is still on Sierra Highway, but has housed a French restaurant called 'Le Chêne' since 1986. The cliffs where the truck crashes at the end are Mystery Mesa, off Vasquez Canyon Road.
Production of the television film was overseen by ABC's director of movies of the week Lillian Gallo. Filming was completed on October 4, 1971, in thirteen days—three longer than the schedule—which left ten days for editing prior to broadcast.
Spielberg lobbied for Dennis Weaver to star in the movie because he admired Weaver's work in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil.
Interviewed by Weaver for the Archive of American Television, Spielberg said, "You know, I watch that movie at least twice a year to remember what I did".
Truck as antagonist Matheson's script made it clear that the truck driver would be unseen aside from the few shots of his arms and boots that were necessary to the plot. Specifically, the driver's arms are shown twice, motioning Mann ahead, and his leather boots are shown in the gas station scene near the beginning of the film. His motives are never revealed. In a DVD documentary feature, Spielberg observes that fear of the unknown is perhaps the greatest fear of all, and Duel plays heavily to that fear; the effect of not seeing the driver makes the real antagonist of the film the truck itself.
Vehicles The car driven by Mann is a red Plymouth Valiant. Four cars were used in production. One of those cars was an older 1969 model with a 318 V-8 engine that was modified to look like a 1970 model. It had PLYMOUTH spelled out across the hood (though the brand name was covered with aluminum foil for the movie), as well as a trunk lid treatment characteristic of the 1970 model. This older modified 1969 car was a stunt car that was used to go down the cliff in the final scene of the film. An actual 1970 model and a 1971 model that both had a 225 cu in Slant Six engine were also used.drivetribe.com The last car was a 1972 model that also had a 225 Slant Six that was used to shoot the additional scenes for theatrical release in April 1972 and was later seen in "Never Give a Trucker an Even Break", the seventh episode of the Universal television series The Incredible Hulk.
Spielberg did not care what kind of car was used in the film, as long as it was red, which would allow the vehicle to stand out from the landscape in the wide shots of the desert highway.
In what he called an "audition", Spielberg viewed a number of trucks. He selected the 1957 Peterbilt 281 over the contemporary, flat-nosed, "cab-over" style of trucks. The long hood of the older Peterbilt, its split windshield, and its round headlights give it more of a "face", adding to its menacing personality. Additionally, Spielberg said that the multiple license plates on the front bumper of the Peterbilt subtly suggest that the truck driver is a serial killer, having "run down other drivers in other states". For each shot, several people were tasked to make the truck progressively uglier, adding oil, grease, fake dead insects and other blemishes.
The truck was manufactured as a single axle, with a Rockwell TK-570 tag-along axle behind it. It had a 260 HP (194 kW) CAT 1673B turbocharged engine with a Fuller RTO-913 single shift 13-speed "Roadranger" transmission, making it capable of hauling loads over 30 tons ( t) and reaching top speeds of although the truck was made to appear that it was going faster than it actually was on the big screen. A single truck was used for the original filming, so the shots of it falling off the cliff and being destroyed had to be completed in one take.
A backup truck—a 1960 Peterbilt 281—was built up for the original filming when the Cat Engine in the original 1957 Peterbilt 281 had begun giving the film production problems during rehearsals. On the last day of filming the backup truck was taken off of the film production, leaving them with only one truck at the time to film the final scene of the film. This truck is the only truck from the film known to survive today. This truck is capable of reaching up to a top speed of 64 mph. The 1960 Peterbilt 281 had originally featured a NHBS 262 HP Cummins Engine with a 5 X 3 twin stick transmission at the time filming had taken place, but has since been repowered with a small cam NTC-350 HP Cummins Engine with a 5 X 3 twin stick transmission and has since had a live tandem put underneath the truck. Another truck was purchased to shoot the additional scenes for theatrical release in April 1972; this truck was a 1962 Peterbilt 351 also with a 260 HP (194 kW) CAT 1673B turbocharged engine and Fuller RTO-913 transmission that was capable of reaching top speeds of 61–65 mph (98–100 km/h); this truck is verified to be long gone today. KW Mudflaps were also visible on this truck at the time of filming.
In 1978, stock footage of both vehicles, along with some new footage of a 1964 Peterbilt 351 truck, was used in "Never Give a Trucker an Even Break", the seventh episode of the Universal television series The Incredible Hulk. This displeased Spielberg, but Universal owned the Duel footage, and could use it as it saw fit.
Use of sound