Duel [Includes Digital Copy] [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray]

Director: Steven Spielberg Steven Spielberg

Overview

In this TV movie, Dennis Weaver is driving down a deserted Southern California highway when he passes a large gas trailer truck. Moments later, the truck dangerously tailgates Weaver before abruptly cutting him off. Weaver and the never-seen truckdriver then engage in a motorized duel ... to the death.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/14/2023
UPC:	0191329229538
Original Release:	1971
Rating:	PG
Source:	Universal Studios
Language:	English
Time:	1:30:00
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	1,528

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Dennis Weaver	David Mann
Tim Herbert	Gas Station Attendant
Charles Seel	Old Man
Jacqueline Scott	Mrs. Mann
Eddie Firestone	Cafe Owner
Shirley O'Hara	Waitress
Lou Frizzell	Bus Driver
Lucille Benson	Lady at Snakerama
Gene Dynarski	Man in Cafe
Alexander Lockwood	Old Man in Car
Amy Douglass	Old Woman in Car
Cary Loftin	Truck Driver,The Truck Driver
Dale Van Sickle	Car Driver
Dale Van Sickel	Car Driver
Dick Whittington	Radio Interviewer
Shirley O'Hara Krims	Waitress
Billy Goldenberg	Composer

Technical Credits

Richard Matheson

Steven Spielberg	Director
George Eckstein	Producer
Cary Loftin	Stunts,Stunts
Richard Matheson	Screenwriter
Edwin S. Hall	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

A traveling salesman and a mysterious truck that pursues him are the only ingredients in this minimalist story that marked Steven Spielberg's first major directorial feature. Originally made for television, Duel was shown theatrically in Europe in the early '70s but did not have an American release until 1983, after Spielberg had become a household name with Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and E.T. Writer Richard Matheson concocted an exercise in paranoia, featuring Dennis Weaver as the salesman, in which the truck driver's face is never shown and his motives are never clear. Thus the story has a Kafkaesque quality, as the salesman is psychologically tortured while being physically terrorized. Spielberg shows a firm grasp of the action, even if it occasionally becomes repetitive. It is hard to imagine, from this spare, economical film, that he would go on to a career as an impresario of big-budget, special-effects blockbusters.