TV Running Time 1:13
European Running time: 1:28
American Running time: 1:30
MPAA Rating: PG
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (1.85:1)
Budget: $750,000
Before there were the rampaging horrors of the Great White shark or the T. rex, there was a 40-ton truck. "Duel," which was made for television in 1971, is the first indication of great things to come from the young 24-year-old director.
The teleplay for "Duel" by genre luminary Richard Matheson is based on his short story published in the April 1971 issue of Playboy. The idea came to Matheson in 1963, on the already tense weekend when President Kennedy was assassinated, when a trucker dangerously cut him off on a California freeway. By Matheson using this personal experience, he tapped into an auto-obsessed society's fear of death on the roads at the hands of a mad motorist, a phenomenon that would later be so widespread as to earn the trendy catch phrase "road rage."
Steven Spielberg's secretary gave the issue of Playboy to her boss, thinking the tense short story would be of interest to him. Spielberg was indeed interested, and he pitched his bid to helm the picture as a theatrical feature to producer George Eckstein, who hired him on (having seen "Amblin'" and Spielberg's early TV work). Unable to secure a name theatrical film actor for the lead role, "Duel" was relegated to release as a TV movie-of-the-week. Ironically, due to the film's high production values, it would be released theatrically in Europe in 1973, and later still due to the director's growing marquee value, "Duel" had a theatrical run in the U.S. in 1983 as well.
Television star Dennis Weaver was cast as Mann, a henpecked businessman caught in the inexplicable events of the film when he is cut off on a California desert road by a rusty hulking truck. From this early point on, the entire thrust of the film is man vs. beast in a struggle for survival. The plot of the film is simply the story of a trucker progressively stepping up Mann's paranoia and fear, through toying to outright attempts at murder. Such a sparse, tight narrative serves the film well, and Spielberg plays the basic story to the hilt for thrills, plain and simple.
With only a sixteen-day shooting schedule, the guerilla pace of the production really lends to the film itself. Many claim Spielberg's speed while lensing a picture comes from his years of training in television, but it can be argued that the young director brought this skill to the table from innate ability and years of making amateur and student films. To help keep his focus on the picture as a whole during the quick shoot, Spielberg had a giant storyboard and map of the desert roads they shot on hung around his hotel room walls during production. Each day they shot, he would tick completed shots off the storyboards, helping him keep track of the work he had ahead of him, and helping him visualize the film throughout the short, grueling shooting schedule.
"Duel" has an extreme feeling of claustrophobia about, but it is a paradoxical effect. Despite being on the wide-open road, a symbol of American freedom and mobility, Mann finds himself trapped inside his car, within the mass of traffic in the city, in the canyons surrounding stretches of the desert road, and within his own fear-addled mind. Visual setups that Spielberg employs further cramp the viewer, from the early longshot of Mann's car on the highway, separated from us by a length of rusty barbed wire (a foreshadowing of being trapped by the rusty truck) to the odd setup as we view Mann on the telephone cut-off from us by the open door of a drying machine in the laundromat (added for the theatrical release).
Throughout the film, Spielberg's choice of focal depths and lens cause yet more claustrophobic combinations, as we see extreme closeups of Mann in the car shot with a wide angle lens (causing mild distortion) or more terrifying still, the truck barreling toward Mann as shot through his rear window — the proximity of the vehicle seems unreal and all the more frightening in its closeness as it fills Mann's rear view.
For such an early effort, in hindsight, it is wonderful to see in "Duel" a number of very important themes that would carry through Spielberg's filmography: an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances, man (out of his element) vs. a force larger than himself, and to a lesser extent, the story of a man struggling to find his identity as the solid head of a family that is coming apart at the seams (in the added theatrical scenes).
The television film was given the honor of having a run of print ads and a press screening, something rare for the likes of a television product back then. When the film aired on November 13, 1971, the viewing audience wasn't stellar but the reviews were spectacular. Spielberg had a handful of firm directing offers after the TV premiere of "Duel," and the film itself was nominated for two Emmys — it won one for best sound editing — and was also nominated for best TV film of 1971 by the Golden Globes. It has since gone on to be a well-respected piece of work in the director's amazing filmography.
"Duel" was later released theatrically in Europe in 1972 to much critical acclaim for the young director. To make the film of a length to be shown in theaters, a longer title sequence was added, as well as a scene of Mann calling his wife in a laundromat at a gas station, and a scene of Mann's car being pushed by the truck toward an oncoming train.
"Duel" also had a belated, very limited U.S. theatrical release on April 22, 1983, at which time the MPAA issued a PG rating.