Duel

With the release of The Post and Ready Player One, two Steven Spielberg directed films, being released within three months of one another, I thought it might be a good time to go back and review the many films he's made that I haven't already reviewed. I'm starting at the very beginning with Duel, a white knuckle thriller that was originally an ABC Movie of the Week he directed for television back in 1971. Within this first feature though, shows the early promise that would return time and again within his career.

David Mann (played by Dennis Weaver) is a salesman travelling to a distant appointment through the deserts of Southern California when he crosses paths with an intimidating and dirty old Peterbilt Semi-Truck. When he passes the truck, he unwittingly instigates an increasingly intensifying stand-off with the truck driver. It starts off as a bit of antagonizing quickly escalates as it becomes clear the driver of the truck intends to continue his pursuit and eventually kill David. His attempts to evade or get away from the truck fail and with no one to help, it becomes increasingly clear that a standoff between the two is inevitable. 

There's a simplicity to this film that makes it work. Spielberg mines the story, written by Richard Matheson, for maximum tension. He also knows when to keep the mystery, as we never really get a look at the driver of the truck, aside from his boots walking around the truck at one point and his arm waving out the window at another point. Other than that, it's that rusty, grimy truck we see at every turn as David tries to elude it and fail. It's an intimidating behemoth of a truck, with several license plates bolted to the front like trophies, subtly suggesting that David is not this trucker's first victim. The film remains focused on the main character and how he deals with the predicament. 

It fell on actor Dennis Weaver to carry the film on his own and he is more than up to the challenge. The film sticks with his character from beginning to end and Weaver does a fantastic job of portraying an everyday man in an extraordinary and terrifying predicament. The film is really with his character from the beginning all the way to the end and Weaver does a great job portraying his character's initial perplexment at this strange truck and it's driver that keeps following him to his increasing desperation as things get more and more intense. There's a great scene where David seeks a respite from the Truck at a roadside diner bathroom only to come out and see the truck parked in the lot outside. He then proceeds to look around the diner at all the patrons with no idea who it could be. The way Dennis Weaver plays the scene with the sort of palpable fear and paranoia is perfect. It only escalates from there as David becomes more and more desperate to escape his clearly psychotic pursuer and Weaver captures that perfectly, all the while carrying the film almost single handedly. 

For a film debut, Duel showcases Spielberg's trademarks from the very start, with certain hallmarks that would follow him through his career including his knack for white knuckle thrills and the everyman hero that would appear again and again through his films, especially his second theatrical film, Jaws, which share some distinct and intentional parallels. As a film on it's own, it still holds up as superior piece of thriller entertainment that will make any highway driver think twice about the person driving that Semi next to them, and maybe keep their distance a little more.