Before spinning cinematic gold from sharks, dinosaurs and homesick aliens, a young Steven Spielberg directed this high-velocity thriller about an innocent motorist terrorized by an evil truck. Spielberg's first full-length movie, “Duel” helped jumpstart the director's big-screen career, with a gripping, action-packed story hailed by critics as a film that “…belongs on the classics shelf reserved for top suspensers” (Daily Variety).
Dennis Weaver stars as the traveling salesman waging a desperate battle for survival after he is mysteriously singled out for destruction. Praised for its deft use of relentlessly mounting psychological tension, “Duel” features one of the most uniquely terrifying “characters” in movie history: a massive, roaring 40-ton truck with more sheer menace than most flesh-and-blood villains. But Steven Spielberg was, literally, just getting started. A few years later, the action of Spielberg's blockbuster “Jaws” would echo “Duel's” tale of a lone hero in a heart-stopping fight to the finish against a monstrous, inhuman foe.
Review
“This is the TV movie that put Steven Spielberg on the map, shortly before he made The Sugarland Express. Working from a script by Richard Matheson, the film stars Dennis Weaver as a mild-mannered traveling salesman who unintentionally angers the driver of a semi truck. Suddenly, the truck is not only riding his tail but trying to run him off the road. No matter what he does (pulling over, stopping at a diner, calling the cops), he can't get rid of it. Spielberg makes the wise decision of never showing the driver, even as he cranks the voltage on the film's suspense elements. As a result, the truck itself takes on an air of satanic menace–even a personality of sorts–as it seems to hunt its human prey. Spielberg made a lot out of a little, suggesting just how skilled a storyteller he would become.”–Marshall Fine