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For our "keep the projector tuned up" project this week, my wife and I watched this 1971 flick via a converted-from-DVD DCP tonight.
For the uninformed, "Duel" was a made-for-TV movie and was Steven Spielberg's second feature-length movie as a director. The success of "Duel" is what opened the door for him to direct "Jaws" a few years later.
The movie has the world's barest plot. The story is: Dennis Weaver gets terrorized by a crazed truck driver. That's it. There's not much dialogue (and what there is, is kind of painful to 2020 ears) and there's also no motivation. We never learn why the truck driver's pissed; we get a couple of subtle clues but nothing confirmed.
For anyone who has ever been terrorized by a truck on a two-lane highway (and usually those incidents are caused by the person in the four-wheeler, not the truck driver) the movie will be relatable. In other words, everyone can relate to this story because just about everyone has gotten "too close" to a trucker and come away with that queasy "I could have just been killed" feeling.
The movie is 89 minutes long. I read somewhere that the original version was 74 minutes for TV, but it was lengthened out for a brief theatrical release. They would have been better off to leave it at 74 minutes. The movie tends to drag a little in spots, although this could partly be due to your typical viewer these days not being used to the more casual pace of movies from the 1970s.
I was thinking this movie could stand a great remake. With 2020 special efx and sound, and a more fleshed-out story and some better acting, it could be awesome. Although they would probably ruin it by making the truck have supernatural powers, or adding a few gun battles, or having Spider-Man swoop in at the last second to save the day.
For the uninformed, "Duel" was a made-for-TV movie and was Steven Spielberg's second feature-length movie as a director. The success of "Duel" is what opened the door for him to direct "Jaws" a few years later.
The movie has the world's barest plot. The story is: Dennis Weaver gets terrorized by a crazed truck driver. That's it. There's not much dialogue (and what there is, is kind of painful to 2020 ears) and there's also no motivation. We never learn why the truck driver's pissed; we get a couple of subtle clues but nothing confirmed.
For anyone who has ever been terrorized by a truck on a two-lane highway (and usually those incidents are caused by the person in the four-wheeler, not the truck driver) the movie will be relatable. In other words, everyone can relate to this story because just about everyone has gotten "too close" to a trucker and come away with that queasy "I could have just been killed" feeling.
The movie is 89 minutes long. I read somewhere that the original version was 74 minutes for TV, but it was lengthened out for a brief theatrical release. They would have been better off to leave it at 74 minutes. The movie tends to drag a little in spots, although this could partly be due to your typical viewer these days not being used to the more casual pace of movies from the 1970s.
I was thinking this movie could stand a great remake. With 2020 special efx and sound, and a more fleshed-out story and some better acting, it could be awesome. Although they would probably ruin it by making the truck have supernatural powers, or adding a few gun battles, or having Spider-Man swoop in at the last second to save the day.
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