Steven Spielberg Kicked Off His Career In Thrilling Style With Duel

Before The Post, before Schindler's List, before even Jaws and The Sugarland Express, Steven Spielberg directed Duel, a TV movie of the week that got expanded into an 89-minute-long feature-length cut for theatrical exhibition domestically and abroad (that longer cut is the one reviewed here). Spielberg's earliest directorial credits were all television work (including a segment in a horror anthology TV movie that starred Joan Crawford!) but this was the first time he got to be behind the camera on a project that reached the runtime of a typical feature-length motion picture, setting the stage for his career in directing theatrical films that was yet to come.


For the premise of his inaugural directorial gig, things are kept simple: David Mann (Dennis Weaver) is your typical middle-aged family man away for business whose primary flaw is his inability to display any courage. While driving on the open road, a large Peterbilt begins to follow him and refuses to stop. Though initially merely an annoyance, it isn't long before this much larger automobile becomes more violent in how it approaches David as it constantly tries to run him down. No matter what David does, he can't escape this vehicle hellbent on annihilating him. It's inevitable that David is gonna have to engage in a showdown with this vehicle, a showdown that only one contender will walk away from.

Even in his first time doing a feature-length project, Steven Spielberg is able to show off some serious skills behind the camera that offer a tease of what's to come in his later more elaborate efforts as a filmmaker. Nothing in the camerawork even begins to approach his most methodical work in the likes of Schindler's List, Munich and Lincoln, but there's also a far larger amount of inventiveness and craft going into filming this project compared to other 1970's TV movies. This is especially apparent in the way intense scenes where the Peterbilt chases down David are filmed, which go a long way to crafting an unpredictable atmosphere mirroring that feels comparable to how David himself is viewing these events.

The script occasionally feels padded out, to be sure, but I'm willing to be easier on that aspect given that Spielberg and company were told to extend an hour-long TV movie by any means necessary to get it to the length of a typical theatrically released movie. Interestingly, one of the additions for this longer cut is apparently David's run-in with a woman who has a rinky-dink snake exhibit, which ties into one of my favorite aspects of Duel, which is how the various locals David runs into in attempting to evade this truck feel as distinctive and unique as people in real-life.  This method of channeling reality also has the added benefit of ensuring that David has some entertaining interactions with those he seeks help from in his hour of need.

Steven Spielberg mentioned in the excellent HBO documentary Spielberg how Duel laid a lot of the groundwork for what was to come in his career, namely in Duel's plot mirroring the man vs. imposing creature plot of Jaws as well as the recurring plot mechanic in his movies of an everyman being an underdog trapped in daunting circumstances. It's certainly interesting to see how Duel manages to be a precursor to what was to come for Spielberg in terms of thematic material as well as camerawork, though thankfully, Duel still works well enough as solid thriller fare even when divorced from the larger filmography of it's director.