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.
