10 responses to “The July 27th Episode: Spielberg’s “Duel””

1. 

   Kylopod

   July 27, 2026 at 10:16 am

   Some years back Spielberg criticized the practice of streaming services giving their films limited theatrical releases. What I find ironic about that criticism is that Duel, the film that first put him on the map, was an early example of a made-for-TV movie that ended up being released in theaters (though the theatrical version was significantly altered from the original TV broadcast).

   A lot of what’s happened with the evolution of TV from broadcast to cable, satellite, and eventually streaming, and the overall improved technology in all its forms, is that TV content has become increasingly cinematic, increasingly indistinguishable from what’s shown in theaters–a factor in why theater attendance has suffered so much. TV content used to have a much lower-quality feel than theatrical films. That’s why it can be hard to appreciate how ahead-of-its-time Duel was. It even has cheesy, dated moments like echoed-internal-monologue, but manages to transcend it with its incredible action direction where the truck itself almost feels like a character while we never see or hear the driver inside of it.

   I would also add a comparison with the movie Groundhog Day in how it benefited from keeping the cause of its central premise a mystery. Apparently, early drafts of GD explained what was happening to the main character as the result of a voodoo curse from a former girlfriend. That was the sort of thing you saw in a lot of supernatural comedies, always some goofy throwaway explanation for the magical event (you see this in most body-swap comedies, for example). Choosing not to explain why the Bill Murray character got stuck in a time loop elevated the story in a way that I think goes underappreciated.

   Similarly, in Duel there’s never any explanation for why the main character is getting terrorized by the trucker–no revenge plot, no explanation whatsoever about the identity or history of the insane trucker or how he may or may not have any prior connection with the motorist he terrorizes. It gives the entire story a purity that would have been lost if they’d attempted to rationalize it, and adds to the nightmare feel of the situation.

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   1. 

      Kathy

      July 27, 2026 at 11:07 am

      I’m not sure. Was the 70s original Battlestar Galactica pilot movie shown in theaters in the US? It was in Mexico, and issued using Sensurround (whatever that was)

      Choosing not to explain why the Bill Murray character got stuck in a time loop elevated the story in a way that I think goes underappreciated.

      Similarly, in Duel there’s never any explanation for why the main character is getting terrorized by the trucker–no revenge plot, no explanation whatsoever about the identity or history of the insane trucker or how he may or may not have any prior connection with the motorist he terrorizes.

      IMO these are two very different things. If Phill knew why and who or what put him in a time loop, then there’s a way out of it. If so, the movie will revolve around that, rather than Phill’s attempts to break out, the despair at not being able to, and even the attempts to enjoy it*.

      Not explaining the motivation behind the plot, IMO, is something else. Here I have to point my own bias: I dislike what I call motiveless malignity. It’s what pervades monster movies, including such hits as Jaws or Jurassic Park.

      *There’s a Stargate SG-1 ep, I forget the title, with a similar plot device. Jack and T’ealc get stuck in a time loop, but they know why and who put them in it. So they spend the ep trying to fix it. They add a few scenes of Jack being insubordinate just for lols.
      1. 

         Kylopod

         July 27, 2026 at 12:48 pm

         Not explaining the motivation behind the plot, IMO, is something else. Here I have to point my own bias: I dislike what I call motiveless malignity. It’s what pervades monster movies, including such hits as Jaws or Jurassic Park.

         Apart from criticisms of the realism of Jaws (which Peter Benchley came to regret writing due to its popularizing the myth that sharks hunt humans) and the scientific accuracy and even philosophical themes of Jurassic Park (which falls in a tradition of popular sci-fi that promotes fear and disdain for technological progress), I don’t think those are exactly good examples of badly written monster movies. If you think they are, you’re in the minority.

         I actually agree that, in general, lack of motive or explanation is often a problem in fiction. It very much depends. When thinking about Groundhog Day, the most immediate comparisons are to other movies about characters who find themselves in some kind of supernatural or otherworldly predicament used mostly as a setup for comic props. I already mentioned body-swap movies–films like Freaky Friday, Big, and so on. Other examples in this category include All of Me, Liar Liar, and Shallow Hal. The explanations in these films are all goofy as hell–a birthday wish by a 6-year-old, hypnosis by Tony Robbins, a theme-park genie. And I’m not saying these are all bad films by any stretch (Liar Liar happens to be my favorite Jim Carrey comedy). Nobody ever said comedy had to be plausible in order to work. But I do think Groundhog Day elevated itself by avoiding that type of device when it discarded the earlier idea of explaining it as a voodoo curse–not because the earlier idea would necessarily give Phil a way out of the situation, but because discarding it allowed the film to acquire a certain poetic and spiritual quality that explaining the cause of his predicament would have distracted from.

         As for Duel, you just have to compare it to other movies in the crazy-trucker genre, particularly Joy Ride (2001), to see how much the earlier film benefits from not explaining the trucker’s motivations. It was based on a short story by Richard Matheson, who wrote many episodes of The Twilight Zone and specialized in stories about bizarre, nightmarish incidents in the lives of ordinary people. The nonexplanation fit this tradition perfectly and is a big part of the reason why, I’m convinced, the film still resonates today, given road rage and the way people can become maniacs as soon as they get behind the wheel.

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         1. 

            Kathy

            July 27, 2026 at 2:31 pm

            Neither of the latter Spielberg movies are badly written. it’s just the monsters have no motive to keep hunting down humans. That’s what makes them monsters rather than predators.

            Liar, liar is a great comedy. While we’re shown what causes the character’s incurable, but temporary, bout of absolute honesty (he’s even compelled to volunteer information sometimes), he finds out he can’t undo the curse when he tries. So he has to live through it. He also manages to find ways to lie by telling the literal truth and omitting the specifics.

            My one gripe with the movie is that a lawyer who instructs his client to lie on the stand, would be disbarred and sanctioned, and possibly prosecuted.

            As to Groundhog Day, I recall reviews stating Phill had to get it right to break the curse. maybe. He certainly outdoes himself in the last iteration (and is an entirely different person than he was on the day before, as far as those who know him could tell). And maybe that’s how long the curse lasted, or how long the unseen, unheard, unknown agent took to lose interest. And maybe it’s something else entirely.

            And as to Duel, I don’t think I’ve seen any other insane trucker movies. They’re definitely not my cup of tea (and for that matter, neither is tea). I’ve seen some revenge movies, and can’t say I care for the genre either. Maybe with the exception of the Shawshank Redemption, and it’s arguable revenge was not Andy’s motive until later. He could escaped, taken the money, disappeared to Zihuatanejo, and even made arrangements for Red to join him later, without turning either Norton or Hadley in.
         2. 

            Kylopod

            July 27, 2026 at 7:57 pm

            Neither of the latter Spielberg movies are badly written. it’s just the monsters have no motive to keep hunting down humans. That’s what makes them monsters rather than predators.

            So? That’s what they were–monster movies. They weren’t trying to be anything else–except in the sense that Spielberg’s specialty has always been to transcend the films he’s imitating. They’re better than most of the creature features that influenced them. Duel is actually a bit of an exception in Spielberg’s filmography in how original it was when it first came out (its biggest influence is probably, as mentioned, The Twilight Zone).

            And maybe that’s how long the curse lasted, or how long the unseen, unheard, unknown agent took to lose interest. And maybe it’s something else entirely.

            But the point is that the movie would not have been improved by revealing who or what was behind the curse. And frankly, I don’t think it even matters to the story’s basic themes. It definitely has religious and spiritual undertones, but it works better keeping it broad, rather than attaching it to any specific religion (particularly the ham-handed way these types of comedies usually treat religions like Hinduism or Voodoo).

            I’ve seen some revenge movies, and can’t say I care for the genre either. Maybe with the exception of the Shawshank Redemption, and it’s arguable revenge was not Andy’s motive until later.

            I was thinking more of stories where a villain is taking revenge on the protagonist, rather than the other way around–Cape Fear might be the best-known example. Joy Ride is a crazy-trucker movie that uses that setup: two college kids do a cruel prank against a trucker, and in retaliation he makes their lives a living hell. But there’s never any doubt the trucker is a psycho. Their mistake was to poke that bear. I was praising Duel for avoiding that kind of explanation. The idea that the trucker is terrorizing the guy just for the hell of it is, in some ways, a much scarier scenario, since it could happen to anyone.
      2. 

         James Joyner

         July 28, 2026 at 1:46 pm

         @Kathy According to Wikipedia,

         “Saga of a Star World” (aka “Battlestar Galactica”) is the pilot for the American science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica which was produced in 1978 by Glen A. Larson. A re-edit of the episode was released theatrically as Battlestar Galactica in Canada before the television series aired in the United States, in order to help recoup its high production costs.[1] Later, the standalone film edit was also released in the United States and internationally.

         Oddly, I’m pretty sure I saw the movie in German when it first came out.
2. 

   Steven L. Taylor

   July 28, 2026 at 10:57 am

   @Kathy

   My one gripe with the movie is that a lawyer who instructs his client to lie on the stand, would be disbarred and sanctioned, and possibly prosecuted.

   Have you heard of this little thing called the Trump administration…?
   1. 

      Kylopod

      July 28, 2026 at 11:35 am

      I didn’t respond to this point earlier because I was afraid of derailing the thread from the original post, but…. In the context of Liar Liar, nobody knew (or at least had proof) that he instructed a client to lie on the stand except him and the client. If the client later goes public about it, the client would get in trouble for it too–and this was in a case they won.

      Honestly, out of all the legal inaccuracies in the film (see LegalEagle’s video on the subject), that was the deal-breaker for you (Kathy)?
   2. 

      Kathy

      July 28, 2026 at 12:24 pm

      I haven’t seen it in years, but I’m pretty sure Jim Carrey’s character was not the president 😉

      @Kylopod:

      It’s not like his client is making unopposed statements. There’s an second party that can potentially prove the testimony is a lie.

      Overall, I think the movie goes with the popular conception of lawyers rather than the actual reality of them. Which is ok for a movie. This can be seen right at the start, when Carrey’s son tells the teacher his father’s a liar, who argues cases in a court.
      1. 

         Kylopod

         July 28, 2026 at 2:06 pm

         There’s an second party that can potentially prove the testimony is a lie.

         Potentially.

         Overall, I think the movie goes with the popular conception of lawyers rather than the actual reality of them.

         Remember that line from Back to the Future II about how Marty’s children get the book thrown at them because the country has abolished all lawyers? Spend more than a moment examining that statement, it would imply the 2015 shown in that movie to be a dystopian hellhole no regular person would ever want to live in. That’s why it’s used for no more than a quick throwaway line. With Liar Liar, the very premise practically guarantees the film is going to be one long lawyer joke. Under the circumstances it’s impressive it got as much right as it did, because, let’s face it, in a film where the best-remembered scenes include Carrey blubbering gibberish or getting into a wrestling match with his own arm, it hardly needed to.

         Who watches these films expecting legal accuracy anyway? The iconic “You can’t handle the truth!” scene from A Few Good Men is wildly unrealistic, yet it’s one of the most beloved courtroom scenes in cinematic history. And that’s a drama!