The greatest movie ever!

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Hitchcockian road rage thriller. High octane cat and mouse play. Jaws on wheels. I could come up with dozen one liners like that to describe 'Duel'. It is real edge on your seat thrill ride. Only Steven Spielberg can stretch such simple premise into an exiting and entertaining hour and a half. Not much work has gone into developing characters, but that is not important in this film. The director just wants you to feel uncomfortable all through movie. I couldn't stop noticing some Hitchcock vibes there - these dense moments where the truck is seeking for it's pray and that score (very similar to Bernard Hermann's work) starts to play.'Duel', being the first feature film for Spielberg, who made many more masterful films in his career, truly stands as a testament to his directing talents.

DUEL is an exemplary addition to the 'car chase' genre of films in the 1970s. Remembered today for being Steven Spielberg's first movie, it's also his best directed, even today. He doesn't let himself get distracted by character, sentiment or special effects; instead it's just a car, a truck, and a lengthy and picturesque stretch of desert road on which to film. He keeps what is in essence a single-location thriller interesting through lots of inventive camera angles, camerawork which alone adds to the tension and build up of suspense; watch, for instance, just how many times you see the truck in the background of a shot. The vehicles and action are perfectly filmed and although the story is a little slow at times (the extra padded scenes required to build this up to feature rather than TV movie length) even these moments have the requisite tension. Dennis Weaver does a stalwart one-man-band job but the real star of the show is unsung hero and stunt driver Carey Loftin, the man behind the wheel of that Satanic lorry.

I'm coming back to my Halloween theme on Horror films that don't seem, at first glance to be Horror films. I think that nothing represents this kind of movie better than Steven Spielberg's first film, Duel. A TV movie starring Dennis Weaver (Of McCloud fame), Duel was pretty much the result of a TV Network throwing Spielberg a bone for winning an award for a Night Gallery episode, or maybe just because he survived working with Joan Crawford. It was meant to be just another TV movie of the week. And it was nothing more than that in North America. But French critics, including Francois Truffault were so impressed with the movie that it was a successful theatrical release in Europe. Duel has the production value of a 70s TV Movie, but it still manages to be much more than that. First, it was preview of what Spielberg was capable of as a director. And second it is a superb monster movie. You wouldn't know it from the premise. Duel is the story of a somewhat weak willed motorist who finds himself pursued by a truck after he passes it on the highway. He doesn't even cut the truck off. And that's part of the key to this being a very good horror movie. The Antagonist operates without reason and seems to be utterly relentless. You never see the trucker. You see a hint of boots and an arm, but you never see a man. As he will do so well later in Jaws, Spielberg makes the unseen and unknown create the tension and the fear in our minds. Because we never see the trucker Weaver's character is pursued by a machine, not a human being. Even Pauline Kael gave the movie a great review. And she would go on to blame Spielberg, along with George Lucas for ruining American film. Her particular prejudice, that small films are important, and big budget films are mindless, would be echoed by far too many people, particularly when it came to Steven Spielberg. He didn't just become a great film maker when he made Schindler's List and Finding Private Ryan. Jaws is a superb film. One of the greatest horror films of all time. It put beaches out of business. And Duel, despite being intended as a cheap TV movie, is far better than it might seem on the surface. What Spielberg was able to do with so little is an indication of how great a director he was even then. It's a creepy, nerve wrenching monster movie that draws you in to its odd premise scene by scene. It's original and it's so much better than it was meant to be. It's well worth the watch, especially just before Halloween. If you haven't seen Duel, I would highly recommend it. Even if you watch it just as a curiosity, just as Spielberg's earliest work, I think you'll be surprised at how much of the film mastery that we would see in Spielberg's later work already present in Duel. And you may not want to drive on a lonely highway for a little while after that.#movies #film #filmcritique #horrorfilm #duel #stevenspielberg

In my opinion, this "Duel" is Steven Spielberg's most Hitchcockian movie. Simple, effective, with great talent, using actors who are not celebrities - they are not even known - he manages to make a film that does not let you get bored at all, you follow it with much interest from start until the end. After 46 years from my first view, I really enjoyed it again. Best film of Dennis "McCloud" Weaver and one of Spielberg's best. Pure suspense. But with an original Spielberg brand. Very much appreciated how it is filmed and how it is edited.