Duel

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 Duel

If you thought the first film Steven Spielberg made was “Jaws”, it wasn’t. That classic was certainly the film that put him on the map and exploded his long impressive career into action. But it was an ABC Movie of the Week that gave Spielberg his first directing gig.

Way back in 1971, at the young age of just 25, Spielberg was literally hanging out around studio back lots waiting for his big break. He had directed an episode of “Colombo” when the opportunity landed on his lap to shoot a small budget film for television about a man in his car chased by a truck through the desert. He was given a small crew and an even smaller schedule of only ten days to film the whole movie. Technically still a young person himself at the time, Spielberg had some crafty ideas and creative smarts well beyond his years and level of experience to ensure the film could be done, on location, and on time.

It took him thirteen days to make the film, but he got the job done, and three weeks later, it debuted on television to high ratings, and went overseas for a theatrical release. It was a hit and the beginning of Spielberg’s career.

Now for the story of the film itself. We begin with a camera’s view from the front of a car, driving through a few city streets then down the freeway, and eventually  along a long, lonely desert highway. We don’t know much about the man behind the wheel, until his character is revealed through how he deals with an odd situation unfolding for him on the road. A large diesel truck is trudging slowly along the highway. With FLAMMABLE printed in big words on its back end, it blows out plumes of black smoke and is slowing the man down from getting to his appointment across state. Losing time and patience, he overtakes the truck, without knowing that one single maneuver would set off a chain of events, and let a monster out of its cage, to be played out on the highways of California.

This truck looks like a monster more than a heavy rig vehicle. It’s an old relic of a machine that probably shouldn’t even be on the road. Brown, rusted, covered in oil stains but still fast on the road, this behemoth on wheels is driven by a culprit we never fully see, except for his arm when he waves the man in the car on, or just a glimpse of his brown leather boots when he hops out at a gas station.

After some overtaking and honking of horns, the man in his red car gets some miles ahead of the truck, and stops at a diner thinking he’s put the road rage behind him. But after a glance through the diner window shows the truck of death parked across the road, the man’s problems are just beginning.

“Duel” was a small masterpiece in its own right, and showed what talent was already evident in a young, aspiring filmmaker called Steven Spielberg. He builds some terrific suspense scenes, given the majority of the film is constant camera shots of the car and truck on the road. But the performance of Dennis Weaver in the lead role of the man in the car, adds to the heightened sense of panic and terror behind the wheel. His facial reactions and internal dialogue to this intense experience happening to him is terrific acting, lifts this made for TV film  far above the standard fare it could have been with a less talented actor. But even then, with Spielberg behind the camera, it was always going to be good. He certainly exceeded expectations when he made his film so quickly and effectively and garnered overseas interest on top of just the regular viewers of American ABC television.

You connect with the man in the car as he tries to resolve the situation and make sense of why this elusive truck driver has targeted him, and only him, to play out a long, twisted game of cat and mouse on the road. Was it just because he overtook him, or was it a case of fate on the freeway? No explanation is given, which adds to the horror of what’s happening to his salesman as he drives across state on just another day. Who he becomes and what he does to defeat the iron beast is a well crafted suspense film that will always be Spielberg’s big break that became the teaser trailer of the long, fantastic career that has spanned over forty years and continues to give us mesmerizing and memorable films year after year

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