Duel (1971, PG)

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Grade: B—

If I hadn’t read Steven Spielberg’s filmography on IMBd, chances are I never would have watched Duel in the first place.  I was compiling together a list of movies to watch, and so I scanned over filmography’s of famous movie directors to find ideas.  I started with Spielberg, and I noticed at the top of his list was the 1971 made-for-TV movie, Duel.  Immediately, Duel was on the top of my Netflix queue. 

Duel is a movie that uses a very straightforward and somewhat banal plot, but in the hands of a good director like Spielberg, the film’s simple structure is turned into a shallow though gratifying piece of entertainment.  Duel offers a fair share of surprises.  The film is about a businessman who, on a drive to a meeting, is followed by an unknown driver in a semi-truck, who frequently attempts to run him over and/or kill him.  What starts as a routine business drive soon turns into a life or death situation.  And we can tell within the film’s first fifteen or so minutes, that only one will survive… 

Honestly speaking, by the film’s end, we really aren’t feeling any different than from the film’s beginning.  Nevertheless, Duel’s simplicity allows the viewer’s mind to feel relaxed but focused simultaneously.  I couldn’t take Duel any farther than for what it is, but there was a lot of talent in the making of it, and thus I must believe that this was the movie that kick started Spielberg on his way to becoming a successful Hollywood director.  B—

Note: The film comes in two editions, the original 74-minute version that aired on TV, and the extended 90-minute cut.  I watched the 90-minute film.