Duel

The roadway is a scary place...and danger is never too far away. The motorized metallic bubble we ride around in helps to provide a feeling of freedom, safety, and security. However, our safety bubble is constantly being tested by other drivers, our own senses, and weather conditions. Not to mention...the large, intimidating beasts that rise above us with empty eyes and teeth of steel seemingly made to frighten us. Barreling down the road at high rates of speed you can’t help but keep one eye on them at all times. Some people call them tractor trailers, others 18 wheelers, and they play an integral role in today’s film.

So if you’re like me and you enjoy film and the I impact and emotions they convey then grab a glass of your preferred liquid and join me for the next half hour. For me, that’s a bottle of White Ale from our friends at Einstok in Iceland. So sit back, relax, and let’s talk about the love of film. Welcome to “Glazed Cinema“.

Steven Speilberg is among the most successful, influential, and accomplished directors of all time. His list of films is quite staggering and he has been responsible for films like ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Color Purple, just to name a few. Today however I’m going to talk to you about a film that at least in my mind is quite underrated and one that never saw the inside of a movie theater when it was released.

Today I felt like talking to you about a film that helped act as a springboard for Spielberg to enter into feature filmmaking. A movie packed with suspense and character. Made in 1971 and released only on television, Spielberg’s first movie Duel is quite simply, fantastic viewing.

Duel is based on a Richard Matheson story of the same name, which he wrote after having a similar experience of what happens in the movie. Apparently after a round of golf with a friend Matheson came into the club house ofr lunch and heard the news of President Kennedy’s assassination. Naturally distraught the two left to venture home and on a narrow road they were chased by a huge truck. Spinning off the side of the road with the truck continuing on Matheson wrote

“Man gets chased by truck” on an envelope. Soon afterward the accomplished writer started developing the story. Once he had the story down he began to pitch the idea to several tv studios and most thought there wasn’t enough content. Matheson instead would write a novella and released it to Playboy. Later Universal Studios contacted Matheson and agreed on a deal, which saw the author writing the screenplay for Duel.

The plot by itself is simple. A man goes the scenic home after work hoping to unwind with some fresh air. On his travels he encounters a slow moving semi. It’s covered in dirt with the word flammable peering out from underneath the silt. He eventually passes the big rig, seeing the headlights fade into the distance of his rearview. Just when he lets his hair down the big rig is on his tail. Sweating and breathing heavily he tries to speed up...the stress building up inside. The truck however seems to toy with the red car and the frantic driver by laying on the horn and ramming the back of the much smaller car. What unfurls after this point is a game of cat and mouse in which the stakes couldn’t be any higher.

Now, today we know Spielberg as a well respected and honored director, but more importantly a great storyteller. Rightfully so, I mean so many of us have grown up on his movies. However, if there’s one thing that’s absolutely certain, it’s that everybody starts somewhere. With Duel, Spielberg made a film debut that would lead to other opportunities and eventually his first theatrical release in 1974. Spielberg began his directing career in television, directing episodes for different tv shows. One of them being a classic show about a curious detective starring Peter Faulk, called Columbo. Gaining experience with each episode he directed, he dreamed of making a full length motion picture, which would come to fruition with Duel.

I remember vividly seeing this film for the first time. I was somewhere around 14 years old and I came into the livingroom of my childhood home to see my dad watching tv. On the screen was this man driving an older model red car through the desert with a gentle narration. The narrative is from the driver’s voice and he describes his work and his day while talk radio intermittently sounds off during pauses.

During the narration we understand that he has a precious altercation on his mind. One that involved another man and his wife. This introduction features long shots of the bright red car cutting through the road in the middle of the desert.

When I asked my dad what he was watching he said “Duel...it’s a great movie about a car chase”. With the little viewing time I had nothing screamed car chase at me, unless the car was chasing empty space. Despite this, my interest was piqued because my dad has great taste and Jaws is our favorite movie. The film starts out quite mundane as I had witnessed in my living room before I sat down on the couch to watch with my dad. The rest of the film is quite different as soon I was hooked, later I was invested, and by the end of the film I couldn’t believe the journey that unfolded.

After I watched this film with my dad I had to re-watch it again. It starts in the red car as we look out toward the street through the glass windshield. We begin in the street of a city, much like San Francisco, the credits flashing in yellow font. Soon we transition into the desert as we get our first look at the person we are following. He's dressed quite dapper with slacks, a dress shirt, and tie on, having just gotten out of work. It isn't long until the camera gazes out toward the road through the windshield again as we see a dirty tractor trailer in front of us. We soon pass by the slow moving vehicle and through this innocent act begins what will be a terrifying journey for the driver who we are buckled in with.

There are many things that make this movie so gripping, but one of the movie’s greatest strengths is its hero, played by Dennis Weaver. We follow this character on a terrifying journey being chased by a charging freightliner. Through the deserts and small towns it’s Dennis Weaver’s expressions that bring the universal emotion of fear into our hearts and minds. The other great thing about this film is the fact that evil has a face, but it’s not a human one. We never see the driver throughout this film. The truck itself is the antagonist, almost possessed to due harm.

There are some fantastic sequences here, that I absolutely adore. Whether that’s the zoomed out and calming shots that follow the car or the more suspenseful shots of the chase scenes.

One of my favorites is a scene in which the deadly chase is making its way up a tall and windy incline. Elated at the sight of a hill our hero continues to step on the gas, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the truck is getting further away. Making some headway he nervously continues his escape from the horrible nightmare he’s found himself in. As he drives on the rig gets further and further away, too heavy to make it up the hill with any kind of speed. The deep roar of the engine getting less and less threatening. Suddenly the car starts to slow and smoke begins to plume out of the hood. As a hissing sound assaults our ears he looks down at his gauges. A terrible scenario has halted his momentum and any hopes of a fast escape. The car is overheating and the needle is trembling on the H for hot. Full blown panic starts to set in as the rig slowly churns up the hill, getting closer. Banging on the steering wheel and yelling in fear he pleads with the car to get up the hill. The camera cuts quickly between brilliant shots of the gauges and the rearview. Closeups of our hero’s face are intertwines in these quick curs, showing our hero crazed with fear, hope, and desperation as he bangs on the speed pedal and steering wheel hoping with all of his might to get him over.

It’s a brilliant scene. It builds such tension and the suspense just permeates through the camera. We as an audience feel his emotions and I was rooting him on to help will the car over the hill and more importantly to safety.

Another scene that I want to mention also has a flair for suspense, but a different kind than the scene we’ve just departed from.

In this scene the action takes place in a roadside cafe. After barely escaping a near death experience with the possessed rig he enters the cafe for some respit. The cafe is full of people, some at tables, some at the bar, but our hero sits at a table as he looks out a window outlooking the road and parking lot. Sitting down he takes down an aspirin and tries to recover from the crash. We hear his thoughts through narration as he tries to rationalize and digest what has happened as he tries to make sense of it all and formulate a plan. The whole while, the camera is scanning the room and also at our protagonist. He gets up to use the restroom and washes off his face, his inner voice trying to talk him down to steady level. He comes back out and sits back down, drinking a glass of water when he looks out of the window. Shock strikes as we see the dreaded freight liner in the parking lot across the street.

Panic immediately sets in as he knows that the driver is in the cafe. What makes this scene even better is that the only visual cue we have to go on are a pair of cowboy boots that we saw at a gas station earlier. What follows is a great sequence in which fear and paranoia take center stageon as he tries to gauge which of the men in the cafe is the one terrorizing him on a lonely and desolate road through the red desert.

It’s a wonderful scene. The narration and delivery on the lines are the stars of the show here. I love the way in which he tries to make sense of everything, at one point trying to normalize what the truck driver was going through...sympathizing with him in some way.

I love this movie and believe it’s well worth the watch, if nothing else to see the initial film of the great Steven Spielberg. I think of this movie every now and again. For most of my life I lived in upstate New York and I would regularly go for drives either to think or just feel free for a while. If you’ve ever been to that stretch of the country you’ll know that there is plenty of two things. Scenery and two lane roadways. I mean after all, upstate New York is a big, beautiful deciduous rain forest with intermittent towns and cities throughout. So when I would drive on the back roads to places like Ithaca for instance and someone would tailgate even for a moment, the thought of Duel was never far away.

That’s what’s brilliant about this film, it’s so relatable. Sure, most of us probably can’t relate to all of these specific scenarios, but we can relate to the feeling and circumstances around them. The fear of a big rig, the paranoia, the panic of a road confrontation. These are all very real emotions, something that help to bring the action shown closer to home for us as an audience. If you’re a driver, it’s a feeling you can relate to. We’ve all been tailgated and we’ve all had that uneasy feeling around tractor trailers. Duel simply turns up the dial on those feelings and brings them into our living rooms.

So when you’re driving down a back road and you see a big rig approaching in your rearview mirror, just remember to keep calm. After all you’re just out for a relaxing drive, not out for a duel.

If you’d like to watch this film you can find Duel on streaming services like Prime Video and YouTube at the price of $3.99 to rent. If you’d like to learn more about the podcast please feel free to visit our website at glazedcinema.com. There you’ll find some background on the show and also a place to submit ideas for future episodes. For film fans who are hearing impaired the blog page on our website features each episode in written form as well. If you like this podcast tell your friends or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Each week there will be new content including hints about episodes before they air. As always, thanks for listening and I hope to see you next time.