Give any long-haul truck driver enough beer to loosen his tongue, and he will tell you something you don’t really want to know: that tractor-trailer drivers are both fully aware of their ability to murder their fellow motorists with impunity and occasionally desirous of doing so. This simple fact — that in a collision between car and truck, the truck always wins — is the basic premise behind Steven Spielberg’s 1971 film, Duel. Originally produced as a made-for-television “Movie Of The Week”, Duel could easily have been forgettable garbage, a simple thriller, or a plodding drama.
Instead, with just one minor change from what was already a conventional formula, Spielberg created a truly great movie. The change? It’s simple: we never meet the truck driver. (More) spoilers ahead…
David Mann (and yes, we are intended to see him as Man, not merely Mann) is a henpecked, miserable, embattled salesman. We see him calling his wife and apologizing for not “standing up” to a man who made a pass at her during a party. He looks at the ground and stammers when he deals with people. He drives a Plymouth Valiant with a low-power Slant Six; about the least masculine car money could buy from an American manufacturer back in the day. (A 318-powered Valiant was used in a few of the scenes, but as we will see, the movie car is definitely a Slant Six.) We’re talking about 115 gross horsepower to push three thousand pounds or more. In an era where American men are measured by their charm, charisma, bravery, and horsepower, Mann has none of the above.
On his way to an important appointment, Mann passes a slow-moving Peterbilt tanker truck… which then re-passes him at a high rate of speed. The battle is then joined, as Mann attempts to evade the truck and the truck attempts to kill Mann. Note that I say “the truck”, not “the truck’s driver”. We never see anything more than the driver’s tanned left arm and his generic cowboy boots.
The situation outlined in “Duel” couldn’t happen today. Mann has no mobile phone with which to call for help, and the locals are unsympathetic to his plight. The police are entirely absent from the story; ask any California resident how reasonable it would be to drive fifty or a hundred miles nowadays without seeing a single cop. Mann himself is no fighter, and is easily thrashed in a roadside cafe by a trucker whom he mistakenly believes to be the Peterbilt’s driver.
Most interestingly of all, the Valiant simply cannot escape the truck. There’s a bit of a hand wave about why the Peterbilt is so fast — it has a “special engine or something” — but more importantly, the Valiant is slow. It can’t run steadily at ninety miles per hour, the way any Kia Rio or Hyundai Accent would easily do today. It’s mechanically fragile, yet because there’s so much slack in the old designs, a cooling system failure doesn’t totally disable it. (As I found out while driving a 500ci Cadillac, the old iron-block American engines can be remarkably heat-resistant.) Mann can’t even out-handle the truck. On the positive side, the Valiant easily handles bad roads and obstructions that would probably stop a GMC Envoy dead in its tracks.
Mann is powerless. Stuck in 1970s America, he has no horsepower, no muscle power, no respect from others, and no respect for himself. It’s easy to see that Mann represents the (stereo)typical American man of the era: beset on all sides by high fuel prices, an invasive, untrustworthy government, increasingly empowered and shrill women, and a war that defies all reasonable expectation. Any parallel with the modern era, by the way, is strictly prescient on Spielberg’s part. Mann, as played by Dennis Weaver, is no DeNiro or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and he has no way to muscle, fight, or bully his way out of the situation.
I’ve always thought that John Frankenheimer’s Ronin was a truly great movie because the car chases moved the plot forward in non-action-oriented ways. Each driver reveals a significant amount of his or her personality in each chase, and as such the chases become more than action sequences; they are conversations expressed in rubber and steel. Duel is no different. It’s one man, straining against an impersonal, merciless machine, and their conversation is written across the California desert. You can see it as man(n) versus machine, you can see it as Weaver’s City Mouse fighting the anonymous Country Mouse at the Peterbilt’s tiller, or you can see it as simply a battle to survive against overwhelming odds.
Modern audiences may find Duel to be paced a little slowly, and at times it’s all too evident that Spielberg padded the length to make the studio happy. Still, it’s worth watching, if only to see a California that no longer exists, a car that can’t zip effortlessly to triple digits with all seats heated to boiling and six coordinated ECUs in perfect electro-mechanical harmony, and a man who finally redeems himself through a combination of intelligence, bravery, and desperation.
Great Movie
This is an extremely good movie. You failed to mention that it was Dennis Weaver who played Mann.
He did.
I also loved Ronin, but have to confess that I never looked at it through that particular lens. Interesting.
Ronin is quite good, with some of the best-ever car chases. But it desperately needs a sequel – all the hooks for one were built in.
Ronin is a manly mans man movie – great chase scenes and a tremendous story. Totally built for endless sequels or a gritty TV series done by a network that would do it right like F/X, Showtime or HBO.
I seem to remember that it has more of a cult status, only did so-so in theaters but has done much better after the fact in DVD release.
“Mann, as played by Dennis Weaver, is no DeNiro or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson…”
and a great review?
Don’t forget all the great cars in the movie, most are just extras, not clones or collector cars.
Before the movie was extended to be a bloated piece of feature length garbage, the primary car used was a 1970 Valiant with a 318 V8. 3,000 lbs and 230 gross hp made it about as fast as anything short of a Corvette, Trans Am homologation special, or 7 liter muscle car. Reshoots and additions were done with 225 slant six cars, but the 225 made 145 gross hp and was about as fast as any non-v8 powered American car of the day. Suspended disbelief is an interesting approach to life.
A buddy of mine in highschool had a 1974 Dart Swinger with the 225 and automatic, it was far slower than my 145 net hp-305 equipped 76 Chevelle, and with no sway bars it was a miserable handler on a winding road.
Somehow he could get it going fast enough to top out the 120mph speedo but it took a long while for it to get there. It had at the time about 80,000 miles on it, and it had a ton of slack in the timing chain.
Slant six performance dropped for 1973, with net power of the 1974 225 being 105 hp. That was down from 1972, when low compression and net reporting gave 110 hp. In addition, the Swinger/Scamp were the heaviest body style and the 1974 model gained 5 mph impact bumpers that added hundreds of pounds. Odd about the timing chain. Slant sixes are generally acknowledged to be among the most durable engines.
Ah,…The slant six…AKA the “leaning tower of power”
did not take long to get to the central conceit
cars are faster than trucks… there’s no way this would happen even if the tractor was not towing a trailer
We measured the 0-60 of that Dart, about 15 seconds. Mine did that in 11 seconds when I got it, and 8 or so when I was done with it.
He was not known to be nice to the engine, sending it screaming along at speeds that made me cringe, along with the 3″ exhaust and glasspack muffler- imagine an angry lawnmower. It died in my driveway while I was trying to tune it with a nice backfire with flames coming from the carb.
He swapped in a Super Six from a Volare wagon, and we never took the original 225 apart. but the amount of slack in the chain was amazing at how far the crank would turn before the distributor/cam did. He did his level best to kill it. We had bets wether the engine or the 7.25 rear would die first.
I still enjoy this movie though, despite knowing they sandbagged that Valiant.
@CJinSD, You’re not kidding about the Slant-6 being durable. Back in the 80’s a friend and I drained the oil and coolant from a Slant-6 Valiant, started it up, and placed a brick on the gas pedal, and took bets on how long it would go before it seized. After about an hour we gave up.
Hot Rod Magazine once did an article about the Slant-6 titled, “The Thing That Wouldn’t Die”.
Unfortunately, Chrysler, like Ford and GM, treated their inline six passenger car engines like redheaded stepchildren. It’s too bad, since inline 6’s can be fine engines. As an example, Ford crippled it’s passenger car inline-6 with cylinder heads that had an integral intake manifold with an ID the size of a worm hole. That engine was a complete and total dog here in North America. Ford Australia developed a proper overhead cam head for that same block, it’s manufactured in Oz to this day, and available with a turbo. The amount of power they get out of it is astonishing, and it manages 20mpg in everyday driving.
The engineer who helped developed the slant 6 was in charge of the 2.2 liter 4 pot that Mopar came out with in the early 80’s. It was his last project before retiring. He gave it some of the same robustness that the old 6 had. When introduced the NA carbureted motor had 93 hp on tap. In its final form with fuel injection, a turbo, intercooler, balance shafts, and a 16 valve head it put out 224 hp.
My parents bought their 1970 Valiant with the slant six in August or Sept. of that year, as I started my senior year of high school. It certainly could have cruised all day long at 100. I remember taking it onto the Bayshore one night (from Stanford), and easing it up to 80, effortlessly. (I wasn’t going to go faster–caution genes run in my family.) It also handled well for a car of its day. Even my sister, who was seven when we bought the thing, says she could tell that car was going to last a long, long time (which bugged her, because her first reaction to the car was “oh, no, not another white car!”).
So I have a little trouble believing that a Valiant of that era couldn’t outrun a large truck.
Own it on DVD and actually watched it last sunday. I love it.
I think it’s a great effort to make such a thriller with more or less two cars, one actor and almost no dialogue (the radio-broadcast is hilarious though :) ) The great scenery, the road and the whole simplicity of it does remind me a bit of Mad Max 2, the Road Warrior, but it’s so much simpler and straight forward. Just 90 minutes of (almost) only driving. That’s even more than the original ‘Gone in 60 seconds’
I’ve never owned any car that was as slow as the Valiant (or is it the driver?) in the movie though. He actually thinks driving at 70 is much, and really struggles at 100 mph…
I play meat.
America was fascinated with trucker movies in the 70’s:
1) Convoy
2) Smokey & the Bandit
3) Any Which Way But Loose
4) White Line Fever
5) Breaker! Breaker!
6) Hijack (I seem to remember this was made for TV with OJ Simpson?)
7) Sorcerer
8) Duel
Then on TV at the same time there was BJ & The Bear. 1980 gave us Smokey & the Bandit II.
There was definitely a huge fascination with trucker culture, and a romanticizing of it by Hollywood during the 70’s. Duel definitely stands out, if not slow and a tad silly in places by today’s standards. The rest of them really haven’t stood up to the test of time on the value of their own merits. Convoy and Smokey & the Bandit definitely have some classic scenes, and Jackie Gleason has a ton of great lines that are still funny today.
I wouldn’t consider ‘Sorcerer’ a trucker movie. That would be like calling “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” a hospital movie.
It’s a remake of a 1950’s French film, “Wages of Fear” (don’t know the original French title)
It was “Le Salaire de la peur” (exact translation of The Wages of Fear), a really great film that in my opinion can be viewed as a trucker movie. Maybe the only one in the list where only truckers are at risk… I didnt know about a remake.
My wife still blames me and says that I made her watch Duel. Now has that fear of trucks that one might stalk her one day too. Ugh. We picked it together. I had seen it years before that when single. How was I supposed to remember that about the movie. :D
I am also a fan of the movie The Driver with Ryan O’Neal. Vehicles and wardrobes reflected the age. I don’t think the cars were the stars of the movie, unlike Gone in 60 Seconds. I liked the truck use at the end.
APaGttH,
Don’t forget the mid 70’s TV show “Movin’ On” with Claude Akins. I remember the truck but not much else about the show.
I remember Movin’ On pretty well. The co-star was Frank Converse as Claude Akins’ driving partner, new to trucking, an ex-lawyer or something like that. The show ran for two seasons in the mid-1970s, just before CB radios became popular with the general public. The series was similar to the original Star Trek, in that each episode involved the two drivers in a new adventure (sometimes comic or at least light-hearted, sometimes dramatic) in a new place.
….hundreds of log book cheating hours at the wheel, fitful naps on slippery sleeper sheets, a diet of chili (not Skyline,though, no big rig parking), Texas toast, and coffee, mood altering uppers, and an expensive addiction to ever more chrome goodies for their steeds…..these and many other factors account for a small but disturbing minority of haulers with antisocial, and sometimes psychopathic, road manners.
Skyline chili? Now you’re talkin’! You must be in the Cincinnati area like me!
I’ve known quite a few truck drivers. Psychopathic would describe the majority of them.
Useless trivia: Spielberg used the sound from the climax of Duel, when the truck goes over the cliff, in the climax of Jaws, when the shark gets blowed all up and sinks. Sort of a hat-tip to himself.
Beat me to it.
Useless, but I love stuff like this. Like Harrison Ford’s car in “American Graffiti” licensed “THX 138” – a tip to George Lucas’ first feature-length film.
I remember “Duel” well. As a relatively new teen driver, it was easy to put myself in Mann’s shoes. The story line of “Duel” came back to me when I later read “Christine” by Stephen King.
Seen both Duel and Christine, read the book back in the 80’s, saw the Christine several years later and hated the movie, it let down the book pretty badly.
Duel was pretty good. First saw it oh, some 25-30 years ago on TV, probably while still in high school and not too many years ago, caught parts of it, again on TV and rather liked his “sporty” little red Valiant 4 door that in the end barely ran and the body beat to hell due to circumstances Mann finds himself.
While it appears slow moving, it keeps you hanging on while Mann tries to out maneuver the big rig and succeeds too.
That ending is fabulous.
This review was better than the film.
Sorry, but Duel ain’t no Schindler’s List or (the first 20 minutes of) Saving Private Ryan. I will agree, though, that casting Dennis Weaver as a sort of downtrodden Willy Loman and keeping the trucker shrouded in mystery are what give the film whatever merit that it has.
Uh… Schindler’s List budget est. $25,000,000. Saving Private Ryan: $70,000,000. Duel: est. $450,000.
Apples, oranges, etc.
Uh…good film making isn’t just about the budget. I would say that Blair Witch was a better film than was Duel, and it was made for dirt.
Schindler’s List had an excellent script. Duel, not so much. It’s better than most films in this genre, but that doesn’t mean that it was good.
Can’t agree. I think all three films are exceptional in their own way.
Duel is fantastic – a bit like “Falling Down” or “Dog Day Afternoon” in its single-day time span and character development.
I thought that “Falling Down” was great the first time that I saw it.
Then I watched it for a second time. It made me wonder what I was thinking the first time. (Huge letdown.)
Agreed about Falling Down. And I still contend Duel was better than any other Spielberg film. But then again I think Barry Lyndon is the greatest film ever made…
Since it had a beat up rig towing a little trailer (unlike the long distance tanker in North by Northwest), Duel always seemed to me more a locals versus outsider movie, like Deliverance. Still had some pretty cool tension, particularly the bit with the school bus. Is the unknown trucker completely crazy or just that way with David Mann?
Growing up in the early 80s, though, my favorite truck movie on TV was Road Games. It had some really good ideas about seeing the same people over and over on long trips which I liked. Like Duel it requires some suspension of disbelief when it comes speed and distance covered. But a giant six axle combination with spotlights all over it has the same appeal as the Mammoth Car (Speed Racer was syndicated on the local channels, too) or any other massive vehicle to a little kid.
Evil trucker in real life, killed at least 3 prostitutes:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/19/2621070/police-say-trucker-killed-at-least.html
“Change gear, change gear, change gear, check your mirrors, murder a prostitute…”
The situation outlined in “Duel” couldn’t happen today. Mann has no mobile phone with which to call for help, and the locals are unsympathetic to his plight.
Not quite so sure…there are still a fair number of areas in Pennsylvania without cellphone service.
Perhaps, but even on his best day, the amish guy in the buggy wouldn’t be able to menace that wimpy dart!
I’m not so sure either. It couldn’t happen in California but US 83 from North Platte to Valentine, NE is pretty deserted. 130 miles of sand hills. I don’t recall much in the way of cell phone service, either.
I love watching this movie on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon alone, when everyone else has gone off to do something else…That way I can completely live vicariously through the Valiant Driver. Great movie…NOW…lets hear a review of “THE CAR”.
I remember watching this when it debuted on the ABC Movie of the Week in 1971. It made quite the impression on my then 5 year old brain. The original TV cut is, in my mind, much better than the padded theatrical version.
Nice review, Jack.
I was 9, it freaked me out. Saw it later,and it seemed boringly long… Always wondered about that, now I know it was the padding.
I remember this film fondly from my youth, and how my friends and I rehashed the story for weeks afterwards*. It was absolutely the coolest movie we had seen on TV, and even as memorable as the Bond films in the theatres. And that’s why I’ll never watch it again. My memory of it is better than the movie ever could have been. I’ve learned not to attempt to revisit those experiences of youth. They never hold up to my memories, and are tarnished as a result.
* An interesting contrast to entertainment today. We all saw the movie even though no one had DVRs/VCRs and cable had not come along to repeat a show several times in a week, but with only 3 major networks we almost always saw the same shows each night and could talk about them the next day.
Kinda like marking seasons with Wizzard of OZ, Sound of Music, Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Heat Miser – Cold Miser, and The Grinch W.S.C..
Don’t forget Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol. Winter was warm….
Makes a marked contrast to today with hundreds of channels of nothing to watch, fast forward or reversing what your actually watching on the cable network, the ability to record and watch the same thing over and over etc. Technology in a way has spoiled people beyond belief and we have suffered as a result of it.
I always had the impression that the car had mechanical problems to start with. At least that was how I explained the fact that he couldn’t get away from the truck. But that doesn’t really matter. All fiction requires a willing suspension of disbelief, and this particular case isn’t that bad.
http://drafthouse.com/movies/terror_tuesday_duel/austin 4 Oct 2011
‘* An interesting contrast to entertainment today. We all saw the movie even though no one had DVRs/VCRs and cable had not come along to repeat a show several times in a week, but with only 3 major networks we almost always saw the same shows each night and could talk about them the next day.’
In the case of Pittsburgh in the early/mid 80s there were two local stations with ‘8 o’clock’ movies in addition to the big networks. Those local stations played a good variety of everything, even if I was only allowed to watch the first hour.
Not that the plots are too similar, this has me wanting to watch “Maximum Overdrive.”
Do this one next. We never meet the villain here either, and it ends similarly:
“What evil force drives The Car?”
Well, Jack Baruth, obviously!
My best laugh of the week so far!
Inspired by The Car? (Check out the front fenders)
http://www.wheels24.co.za/News/Custom_Cars/Ferraris-retro-V12-madness-20110922
I like this one better.
http://images.wikia.com/en.futurama/images/c/c1/Were-Car.jpg
I remember driving many of those roads where the movie was filmed.
Brought back some fond memories.
Fortunately never encountered a crazed driver in a tanker truck.
If memory serves correct, gas was still quite affordable in 1971, so rising fuel prices were not a concern.
Looks like you could use a new radiator hose.
Just watched Ronin again the other night. Damn that’s a fine film.
Wish they hadn’t killed off Larry, the Audi driver, though.
He knew his cars… not that De Niro’s character didn’t give a memorable chase in the movie, but it would have sounded better in that Audi with Nitrous :)
Strange that an article about Spielberg’s early masterpiece Duel would be on here as I have just gotten back from watching the critically acclaimed film Drive starring Ryan Gosling as a stunt driver who moonlights as a wheel man and is nameless in the movie . It was a throwback to older melodramatic violent films like Bullit , but it could’ve used more driving action IMO . A common theme in many of these movies is what you don’t know or see – the driver’s name , the driver themselves , or in Ronin whatever the heck was in that briefcase !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWX34ShfcsE
TTAC At The Movies! With your hosts, Jack Baruth and Michael Karesh! This week, …
If we could get them to wear dorky sweaters, this could really work.
You know, in all seriousness, I miss the podcasts.
‘If memory serves correct, gas was still quite affordable in 1971, so rising fuel prices were not a concern.’
Maybe the Valiant in Duel was a reference to the ‘*** Plymouth’ (not sure what kind of restrictions there are around here) from Kerouac’s ‘On the Road.’ It was described as a cheap underpowered car as well.
The car in On the Road was a Hudson . They were prolly priced right in there with Ford , Chevvy, and Plynouth. Prolly around 80 HP flat head 6. Later Hudsons were popular in the early Nascar days. The truck in Grapes of Wrath was a cut down Hudson of 20s vintage.
Neal’s car at one point was a Hudson; I’m referring to one of the rides they got from another driver.
at the time of On the Road, they WERE underpowered.
That truck was the star of the movie IMHO. It just looked evil. Wouldn’t be the same with a nice new truck.
While I always thought it was an Autocar, the truck was a really a 1955 Peterbilt 281, chosen specifically for its malevolent appearance. The prop guys did a great job of making it look appropriately grimey, and it was an inspired choice by Spielberg (as was the Valiant). Both should be included in any list of classic, memorable movie vehicles.
Imagine seeing that truck rapidly filling up your rear-view mirror on some deserted highway. Probably wouldn’t take too kindly to slow-moving Priuses, either…
May I suggest another scary but little-known road movie? “Cohen and Tate” (by the same guy who did “The Hitcher”). Pretty much the entire movie takes place at night on remote Texas roads, with the 3 characters cooped up in a dismal 80s American car. It’s not really about the cars, but it’s so atmospheric I could smell the vinyl… it’s another great period piece.
Before it was a made for TV movie, it was a great short story by Richard Matheson, first published in Playboy.
I was half hoping I could read to the bottom of the comments without this coming up so I could jump in with this factlet. You get bonus points for coming up with the author. Do you still have that issue?
Dammit Why is everything making the ’70’s look more and more Awesome these days?
Funny – I just borrowed the DVD of this movie from my neighbor and recently watched it! Yes, the radio talk show he was listening to while driving was pretty funny.
I didn’t like the way that they handled the ending, however – there were so many ways that they could have gone, with the henpecked husband at a payphone or police station trying in vain to explain the day’s events to his upset, pants-wearing wife: “I’m really sorry, honey, but I’m not going to be able to make it home tonight for Jim’s birthday party. The car is totalled. It went over a cliff. I don’t know how we’re going to afford another one. Honey, this truck was trying to kill me. No, I’m serious . . . What do you mean ‘how do I know that?\'”
It is a bit tough in our ADD society to watch some of those 1970s movies, however, as they just seem to drag on for so long.
It was the fanbelt not the hose. One of the best of the TV movies at that time.
A couple of things:
“Duel” was a sensational TV movie in 1971. I was in the service, and it was the talk of the office for quite a while. Gas was only 24 – 25.9 cents a gallon back then – in California – I know, my Impala drank lots of it!
The portion of the movie that deflated my balloon, sort of, was in one of the panicked scenes where Dennis Weaver is sweating bullets trying to out-run the truck, the scene would have you believe he was going 85 mph, but the speedo read 55! My dad’s 1966 6 cyl. Impala had more get-up-and-go than what Spielberg wanted you to believe.
All in all, it would be corny now, but it was cool back then. Unfortunately, we and the industry grew up into something much different.
By the way, the Valiant was red? I thought every Valiant from the era was green? Oh, wait – I only had a black and white Zenith TV back then! Doggone! Never saw it in color.
NIce write-up and that was a great movie.
Now how about these truckers that are out to kill us? :)
Great movie. The “chased by a big rig” aspect could and does happen today. Just replace “big rig” with “lifted truck with a power chip”. Those guys sometimes like to bully smaller/slower cars and it’s all too common in rural areas. Everytime I watch “Duel” it reminds me of driving in northern alberta in my old ford escort…The escort would pretty much top out while the chipped diesel boys were on my butt on a one-lane highway. I feel much safer in my Audi highway cruisers now, easy to just drive away from them. “Duel” was pretty good IMO, one of the better “being chased by a baddie for no reason” movies with “The Hitcher” being the best.
Jogging memories. A big rig chased me for about 22 miles once way back when I first got my license. Heavily wooded back road, mostly down hill. 50 in a 35 and he’s on my bumper. And me in a Corsica. Eek!
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned “Vanishing Point”
The only thing I’m really interested about in that movie is “Honda Girl.” :P
I was going to, but ran out of time before I had to go out for a while. Now that movie had me on the edge of my seat! Sure liked the music of Delaney & Bonnie back then.
Dan, I didn’t realize the gal on the bike had a name!
For the above poster, “THX-1138” shows up in many movies, many forms, most recently in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow as far as I know.
+1
Next review please Jack.
Have you seen the episode of The Incredible Hulk – Never Give a Trucker an Even Break?
They swiped footage right from this movie and made a TV show out of it, with some clever editing and re-shoots.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0610892/
Universal Studios, Spielberg’s constant employer during the early 1970s, was notorious for this sort of thing. When Night Gallery (which in its first two seasons originally consisted of stories of varying lengths within an hour timeslot) was chopped up into half-hours for syndication, stories that originally were 10 to 15 minutes were stretched outrageously – I recall one such segment involving a space journey that was grossly padded with footage from Doug Trumbull’s feature Silent Running, even including a shot of one of the drones.
grzydj,
Very interesting, thanks for posting this. I used to watch The Incredible Hulk but I don’t remember this episode. After seeing this I now wonder why I used to watch it.
Watch back to back with Two Lane Blacktop. Compare and contrast. Bask in the deep and dark recesses of the early 70s American mind. Dig them crazy cars. Long for those open roads.
Two Lane Blacktop was an awful movie, in my opinion, and James Taylor still can’t act!
I actually prefer his acting, for lack of a better term, to his “singing”. He’s got one of the most annoying voices I’ve ever heard. And his style of music sucks too.
True, and I think even less of him for blowing his marriage to Carly Simon, whom I still love, especially her 2006 “Moonlight Serenade” album – simply beautiful!
A couple of years ago I went to the local library and picked up as many “car” movies as I could. Wound up with Vanishing Point, Two-Lane Blacktop, Ronin, Bullitt, and Duel. Watched them all straight through or at least tried to. Hated the whole lot. Either bored to tears or confused the whole time. Had to put in The Blues Brothers to wake me out of my stupor. I might try Ronin again but the rest can rot.
Of those, Two-Lane Blacktop was surely the worst. I’ve been on a bad old car movie binge lately and generally enjoy them, in a guilty pleasure sort of way. But there was nothing of any redeeming value in Two-Lane Blacktop.
Up until a few years ago, some guy in Burbank, Ca. owned the back-up truck for Duel. It turns out that Speilberg had to re-shoot a few scenes, so a replacement truck was needed. Eventually this guy bought it and kept it at his home until he sold to a gentleman out of state.
I got to see it in person at a truck show at California Speedway in Fontana several years back.
Good writeup. Viewed through the lense of time and with JB’s perspective its maybe an OK movie.
I remember watching it when it was current, and having same reaction as when watching CHiPS. Tractor trailer relentlessly runs down a modern liter bike which is trying hard to get away and while running right and expertly piloted cannot exceed about 35mph. Disappointed scorn. Anything can happen on TV. (Never walk backwards on TV, you will be assaulted and struck from behind.)
I admit I missed the symbolism at the time and I am glad its pointed out here.
So, is JB really an English major in drag?
Not in drag. I majored in 18thC English authors with a concentration on Pope, Dryden, and Samuel Johnson.
I loved ‘Duel’. Oddly enough, I just did a piece on an iconic 70s car movie that featured a Mopar with serious muscle. http://www.mystarcollectorcar.com/2-features/editorials/1256-vanishing-point-is-on-a-short-list-of-cinemas-most-perfect-movies.html
If “Duel” is remade today, the Slant-6 Plymouth Valiant will be a four-cylinder Chrysler Sebring sedan.
I would agree that today, a movie like Duel would be hard to replicate in real life as cars today, even with many current 4 cyl cars being so much better at keeping speed than cars built back in the day.
As has been said, the tolerances were much more lax and metallurgy isn’t like it is today where a typical car can now last well beyond 150K miles without a rebuild if given decent maintenance. My parents had a base Dodge 330 station wagon with the 225 slant six in it that they bought new in late summer of ’64. I remember going with my dad around 1975 or so to retrieve the poor thing that had been stranded at the HS parking lot after one of its more frequent by then breakdowns and asking my dad how many miles it had. He said it had around 145K miles on it. For a car of that vintage, that’s rare without a major rebuild at some point north of 100,000.
That was a rare thing to have a car last that long but that old wagon did though. The original torque flight transmission died on us on I-90, just outside of Yakima Washington in I think 1973 as we began our journey back to Tacoma where we lived and had the back full of fresh fruit and stuff. Dad had to stay behind and managed to get a used transmission and had it installed and when we sold the car in the late 70’s, Mom says, ’77, it still ran (barely) even if a major rust bucket.
I would disagree with your assessment that the older iron didn’t last. The 1971 Ford 400 and C6 tranny that was in our family for 30 years made it to over 220K miles without any rebuilds, granted the motor had a rod knock and the tranny seals were getting tired at the end.
My wife’s former 1975 Chevy Nova with the 235 6-cylinder and Turbo 350 had 255K miles on it and was still running just fine when it was used in a demo derby a year ago (and engine still ran fine afterwards, and the guy was going to give it to his brother to reinstall in another car).
Most iron American car engines were very durable if proper maintenance was done, especially legacy blocks that were in production for several decades. The problem was, everything else bolted onto the engine had to be rebuilt or replaced (often, several times) – starter, alternator, carburetor, fuel pump, water pump, distributor, exhaust, seals & gaskets, belts, hoses, etc.
Take the Slant 6 motors. They were like cockroaches – the car around them may have been falling apart, but those things just couldn’t be killed. I recall more than one person in my youth draining all the oil out of one and putting a brick on the gas pedal, just to see if they could kill it.
That’s one reason why you see so many Chrysler products in demo derbies – slant six, small block or big block V8, they’ll all keep running with a quart of oil and a gallon of water left in them.
We got this far with no-one mentioning “White Line Fever” with Jan-Michael Vincent?
Love this movie. I have an OCD friend who I turned on to the movie. He watched the thing about 20 times and memorized the whole thing. If you watch it with him now he can tell you when every gearshift is going to happen. Anyways I think you could make this today. I lived in a small town in Maine for a while and used to run rt9 (the airline back in the day)to Bangor quite a bit. The trucks up there had serious power as they were often used to haul seriously overloaded log trucks. When they had light load the would ride your bumper when you were running 70 scary on that road.
http://bangordailynews.com/2010/11/07/news/while-not-the-worst-the-airline-is-notorious-for-animalrelated-crashes/
The truck is ALIVE and WELL
check on the web.
A friend of mine refuses to watch Duel because he hates Dennis Weaver so much. It’s really funny, because he resembles Dennis Weaver, and even slightly sounds like him. Ask him why he hates him, and his answer involves Weaver sounding like he’s being raped in prison.
I don’t get it, but it’s funny.
In the mid 90’s I watched a dual between a Ford Ranger (he was the instigator) and a big rig on interstate 80 occur over several miles in the PA Mountains. Yes on flat or uphill road sections, smaller car wins but on the mountain downhill run for your lives from the 18 wheeler with a head of steam. Now the trucker had radioed the PSP about this idiot weaving, cutting people off and being a danger before things escalated. Ranger rear ended the 18 wheeler first when tailgating and the truck lost speed on the uphill, I simply drove my jeep at a safe distance behind and watched the movie unfold. These two vehicles, hit one another and were all over the road, at one point the big rig sent the ford ranger off the road a good 20 yards up the embankment. Thought the Ranger would not give it up, watched him spin the tires get back on the road and on the uphill sections he would be back trying to wreck the 18 wheeler. After several miles, trucker put a 45 out the window and put a single warning shot through the ford’s hood. Less than a 1 minute later the PSP was all over the scene. Every time I see a movie with a car-truck dual, I am reminded about the dual I witness on I-80, thankful no one got killed. Believe the Ranger driver got DWI, don’t know if the trucker got in trouble he was carrying a full tanker of gasoline and was in contact with the police so they may have let the warning shot slide, much easier to do in the 90’s then today especially in rural parts.
The Slant six for 1971 would be rated for 145 gross HP and the 115 number stated would be the conversion over to today’s net. This movie could be made today in a different area of desert of course. Cell phones lose service and break or get poor reception. Trucks are faster than ever. Cars being made now are regressing a bit in the performance area with smaller 4 cylinder plants replacing V6’s. And depending where you are 50-100 miles without seeing a cop is a distinct possibility in the boonies. Swap an overheating car for a slow tire leak that eventually blows out and the drama would be just as intense as the car driver attempts to feverishly change out to the spare as the sound of the truck going by and then stopping and turning around only adds to the chase. This movie is yet another reason why so many movies fail today. As mentioned you don’t actually see or meet the truck driver, he is a mystery. Drama is heightened not by 10 explosions per second but by the desperate thoughts going through this guys head. What is happening here? Why is the truck so fast? Why is the truck trying to kill him? How is he going to get away in a Slant six Valiant that has enough power to get the car up to speed at a sedate pace and little more? These older movies were so much more effective because little was ever revealed and much was left to the imagination.
Having owned a 318 Scamp at that time, I always figured it had to be the slant 6 in that car, not the V8. I always loved that movie and it should be an example on how to make a good thriller without all the expensive stunts and CG needed in today’s movies.
No mention of Dirty Mary Crazy Larry ? Car outruns all police cars and Vic Morrow in a police helicopter only to stupidly hit a train . I just saw the movie Drive which is sort of a throwback to movies like Bullit – good movie , but should’ve had some more car driving action in it IMO. The driver has no name in the movie just like you don’t see the truck driver in Duel or see what’s in the briefcase in Ronin . Richard Matheson also wrote I Am Legend ,The Incredible Shrinking Man , Devil Doll (part of a tv movie with Karen Black called Trilogy of Terror) and several other short stories all available on amazon as is Duel .
I know the cheese factor was high but I loved that movie. Have not watched it in almost 20 years. Other than the first 10 minutes or so, its pretty much a non stop car chase. Back before VCR’s I used to check the TV guide all the time to see when it would be on next.
Yep, I remember this movie well. I watched it on a Saturday morning (late 1970’s) after there were no more cartoons on. I was only about 10 years old, so the car bug had not bitten. The suspense that movie created was, I suspect, responsible for my wary view of semi trucks on the highway for years.
It was a great movie, but people have to remember Spielberg based his screenplay on a novella by Richard Mathieson (as Ronnie Schrieber pointed out) published in Playboy in the late 60’s I think, and it was a very different story. It took place in a dystopian future (so Mathieson) where people drove armoured cars and could engage in armed “duels” on the interstate to the death. Before the duel, they would agree to make each other their insurance beneficiaries. It was all part of some population control issue if I remember. Some Hollywood dweeb should re-make the movie based on the original story. Satisfies all kinds of dark thoughts in the average American driver.
That would have been epic in 2003. Families in their gigundo SUVs. Escalades vs Navigators, Tahoes vs Excursions. Monteros vs Troopers. An episode of Futurama already did it, though.
I haven’t read Matheson’s “Duel” story, but you may be confusing it with a story by Harlan Ellison where everything you write takes place, and then some. It was included under the title “Along the Scenic Route” in Ellison’s collection The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (also 1969) and originally appeared under a different title in Amazing Stories the same year.
If they do a remake, what would they use? some thing from chrysler with a 4 banger?
If they do a remake, it would appear on the Lifetime movie channel, and it would star someone like Roma Downey of Touched by an Angel.
She would be driving a VW Eos, and would be terrorized by the truck driver throughout the movie.
At the end, however, she would see the truck driver in the wreckage, and realize that he was the geek she and her sorority sisters had ignored in college. It would turn out that he had been stalking and killing her sorority sisters in his truck for years. She was his final target.
Ms. Downey would then fall in love with the CHIPS officer who finally shows up during the last 10 minutes of the film to explain all of this.
First off, gas was cheap in 1971. Gas prices skyrocketed in 1973 with the Arab oil embargo creating some shortages and a lot of panic. Gas prices tripled in a matter of months.
Secondly, “de-smogging” 1971-vintage engines involved little more than having positive crankcase ventilation. These engines ran well and were comparatively powerful. Disaster struck by 1976 or so, when de-smogged engines of the same displacement produced anywwhere from 1/2 to 2/3s the output of their earlier versions.
The gross HP rating of the 225 slant six was, if memory serves, 155 hp, as compared to, say 140 hp of the 230 cu. in six that GM put in its cars (my dad owned one). Unlike the GM 6, the slant six was relatively free breathing (the intake manifold had individual runners from the carburetor mounting base) and so had a strong top end.
I doubt that either engine could push a car to triple digits, given the “flying brick” aerodynamics of that era’s cars. But I can say from personal experience that the GM six could easily push a full-sized Chevy to 85 mph, and I’m sure the Chrysler engine could do at least as well . . . which is plenty fast enough to outrun any semi of the era (which were generally less powerful than today’s big rigs).
That said, invoking the “willing suspension of disbelief” (which might have been easier to do in 1971 than today), it was a good film.
Now, if you move things up about 9 years, and you make the car one of that era’s diesels (Benz 240D or 300D, Volvo diesel, Olds diesel, Audi 5000 diesel, VW Rabbit diesel), now willing suspension of disbelief required. Some of those cars wouldn’t even do 70.
The bad years were 1972-74, when the smog controls really strangled the engines, hurting both fuel economy and performance. The catalytic converters adopted by virtually everyone for the 1975 model year helped greatly, but by then axle ratios and engine tuning were being chosen for maximum fuel economy as opposed to maximum performance, thanks to the Arab Oil Embargo.
Horsepower ratings for pre-smog slant sixes were 115 for the 170 cid version, which was last offered in the 69 model year. 125 horses for the 69-72 198 cid, 100 for the 72-74 model, it was discontinued for 75. For the 225 it was 145 through 71, 110 for 72 and 105 from 73-75.
The 250 ford was also rated at 145 before 1972. for the 72 model year it was rated at 95 horses, in 73 it had 2 different ratings, 98 for 49 states and 95 for california models. for 73 the ratings were 92 and 88, and by 75 the ratings dropped to 72 and 70!
Chevy’s pre smog 250 6 popper was also rated at 145, and dropped to 100 by 73.
Having owned a number of 225 equipped A bodies I know from personal experience that they will easily cruise at around 105-110, but it takes a minute or two to reach those speeds.
The slant 6 had a far superior intake manifold compared to the other 6 holers. The slanted design allowed for a manifold with long, individual runners, which makes for excellent air/fuel distribution for each cylinder. The crude log manifold used on all other sixes was atrocious. There was simply no comparison. Chrysler invented tuned induction with the slant 6 and the cross ram engines.
The leaning tower of power also had a header style exhaust manifold.
The exhaust manifolds on the other sixes were as bad as the intakes.
I thought the part about the valiant being mechanically fragile was especially humorous. A body, slant 6 fragile? This guy must have spent those years living in a cave.
http://ayearofsongs.org/blg/2010/01/18/slant-six-valiant/
I’m not implying that *I* think the Valiant is fragile. I’m pointing out that the Valiant in the movie seems to be awfully fragile.