Duel (TV)
Alfred Hitchcock once described the difference between “surprise” and “suspense” as such: a bomb is under a table, and it suddenly goes off. This is surprise. If the bomb is under the table, the audience knows it’s under the table, and it doesn’t go off. We are wanting to warn the characters, but have to wait it out with them. This is suspense. In “Duel,” the bomb under the table is a radiator hose that a gas attendant has told David Mann at his first stop will need to be replaced. By this point, Steven Spielberg has set up the scene for us, and we’re just waiting for the moment when that bomb is going to go off. The suspense is palpable.
It occurred to me in rewatching Spielberg’s classic TV movie that this aired the same year as William Friedkin’s “The French Connection” thrilled audiences with an all-time great car chase on the big screen. If you were a fan of such action scenes, and were alive in 1971, I can imagine you feeling euphoric by the riches both Spielberg and Friedkin had to offer. “Duel” is basically a 90-minute car chase (originally 74 minutes on TV, but expanded for a later theatrical release), and while it doesn’t quite match up with the great Spielberg films to come, it’s a thrilling piece of film craft, all the same, and proof positive that he had the goods early on.
“Duel” is based off of a short story by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay, and was originally inspired by an incident where a truck driver tailed him traveling one day. The film stars Dennis Weaver as David Mann, a business man on a trip for work who begins to be stalked by a rusted oil tanker with an unseen driver, save for his boots, and a hand waving him past as he’s traveling. He has a brief phone call with his wife, who is taking care of their kids, but, even with the subject matter of possible indiscretions at a party, it’s a perfunctory call between a husband and a wife, and it was shot when Spielberg was padding the film out for theatrical release. The drive of the film, if you will, is the duel between Mann and the truck, and you won’t get much depth beyond that. You will not need it- this could have easily been made during the silent era, and been the same film.
It wasn’t until he began directing theatrical features that the support system Spielberg would accumulate from film-to-film would fall into place, but this still has the hallmarks of a Spielberg film by virtue of his talent being on display in every single frame of the film. Shot in 13 days, Spielberg figured out how to bring this story to life in an interesting and gripping way, and a huge part of that is his casting of Dennis Weaver as Mann. A TV actor, by and large, at this point of his career, he is most recognizable for film fans as the skittering hotel clerk in Orson Welles’s “Touch of Evil,” and that nervous energy is a big part of why “Duel” is as effective a thriller as it is. In addition to employing Hitchcock’s definition of suspense, he also is doing a paranoid, and identifiable, riff on a favorite Hitchcock idea- the man wrongly accused. Nobody’s accused Mann of anything, but he’s still on the run, and cannot find help. When he stops at a diner after being run off the road, the truck backtracks, and Mann is trying to figure out which of the patrons is the driver, turning a scene that started out as a sigh of relief for the character into a paranoid “whodunit” scenario that ends with the truck leaving, seemingly on its own. But the chase is far from over, and where it goes from there sees Spielberg in top form when it comes to pitting man against elements that are trying to kill it.
Let me conclude this review with where it began- a radiator hose. The inspired touch in the first gas attendant scene when he looks under the hood and suggests getting a new hose is because it’s such a true-to-life moment- how many of us have taken our cars in to service, and the mechanic tries to “sell us” on things he suggests we get done? Mann’s reaction is everybody’s reaction at those times- of course you find something wrong with the car; just do what I came here for, and I’ll be on my way. The next time he stops, though, the situation has really set in, and he does try to get that new hose, but is unable to before he is almost killed in a phone booth. He’s got to get back on the road. About the 70-minute mark of the theatrical cut, the bomb explodes, and it’s a pretty bad time for Mann. The way Spielberg stages the aftermath is one of the reasons he is a master- his use of editing, cinematography, and music (even minus his long-time mainstays Michael Khan, Janusz Kaminski and John Williams) is something to marvel at as Mann has to hope he can reach a certain point on the road to survive. For Spielberg, man’s fight for his survival is a primal part of life, and whether you’re talking about escapism like “Duel,” “Jaws” and “Jurassic Park” or serious cinema like “Schindler’s List” or “Saving Private Ryan” or “Empire of the Sun,” it’s a fundamental reason for why he tells the stories he tells. Nobody does it better.
