Duel 1971
Steven Spielberg got his start directing for television and his first feature film was a made for TV movie called Duel starring Dennis Weaver as a guy who is relentlessly pursued by truck. It is based on short story by Richard Matheson, who also wrote a number of Twilight Zone episodes and was filmed on a tight budget in only a couple of weeks. Despite Spielberg's great promise as a director, the movie really shows all of these things. There isn't much of a story, so it feels like a badly stretched version of a Twilight Zone episode. People describe it as having amazingly built up tension and while it has some of that, it just takes too long to get moving and even when it does is a little disappointing. I watched the theatrical version which was extended from the original's 70 minutes to 90 minutes, which did it no favors. I also got to see a 4k copy, but high resolution doesn't do much for such an old movie that was made to be shown on low resolution TV. It is a decent movie, I guess, but very repetitive and slow. I kept wanting it to be a little more supernatural, so it was disappointing that the truck is just being driven by a mostly unseen guy who just has it out for Dennis Weaver. Oh well.
Written: 17 Sep 2024
Owned on: Digital