By the fourth quarter of the twentieth century, TV had
overtaken movies as America’s number one entertainment for good, so it is fitting
that the number one moviemaker of that period got his start on the little
screen. Steven Spielberg was a TV junkie who’d made his name directing episodes
of “Marcus Welby, M.D.”, “Columbo”, and most famously, “Rod Serling’s Night
Gallery” when he was still barely old enough to drink. In 1971, he got his
first break into feature-length movie making, though Duel was consigned to his usual living room-based medium. Spielberg’s
ABC movie-of-the-week adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story, however,
revealed a big screen talent. This brutally minimalistic showdown between a
suburban schlub and a literal monster truck was filmed with all the
consideration and imagination of a major motion picture. That may not sound
like a big deal in the day of “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones”, but it was
completely revolutionary in an age when TV movies were low-budget, disposable
filler between episodes of “The Brady Bunch” and “The Courtship of Eddie’s
Father”. In fact, Duel was so high
quality that it earned a critically smashing feature run in Europe. Spielberg’s
career as a TV director was coming to an end.
Duel is not
generally mentioned among Spielberg’s signature films, but based on this above brief
history, I’m sure you’ll understand its significance. If you need any further
convincing, check out Steven Awalt’s excellent new book Steven Spielberg and Duel: The Making of a Film Career. Awalt gets
deep into this film’s creation, from the inspiration for and publication of
Matheson’s story to the film’s eventual American theatrical run in 1983 in the
wake of Spielberg’s domination of cinemas with E.T. The history is complete, amusing (the “casting” of the
automobiles is documented here, as is the Incredible Hulk’s theft of Duel footage), critical (though mostly
of Awalt’s fellow Duel theorists), and
often just as thrilling as the film it details. The author relates Matheson’s
near-death experience that inspired his tale and Spielberg’s boyhood short
movie about a head-on collision between model trains with a master
storyteller’s grasp of suspense. He also really emphasizes the importance of
master storyteller Richard Matheson in this history. Because Duel is so significant a milestone in
Spielberg’s career, Matheson’s major role in its creation is often minimized.
Not so in this book, which also contains that writer’s complete teleplay for
his and Spielberg’s film. So this book functions as both an informative—and
very entertaining—resource for students of Spielberg and a nice tribute to the
recently deceased Richard Matheson.
