Sep 28, 2026 · 1 hr 17 min · 11 segments
On this episode of Cinema Dual, Jon and Chris look at the bookends of the career of Mr Steven Spielberg. Movies Discussed: *Duel, Disclosure Day* Recommendations : *The Sugarland Express, Teenage…
Depending on how you count this, and I guess there's some disagreement here and there around what technically counts as the first movie, but Duel is definitely among the first feature-length things that Steven Spielberg put out.
It originally started off as a 75-minute TV movie and got such a glowing response that eventually they shot some additional stuff, bumped it up to 90 minutes, and eventually did see a theatrical release.
This is based on a script written by Richard Matheson, and stars Dennis Weaver as David Mann, really the only actor of serious amount of any real screen time.
He is a guy, David, who is trying to get home to his wife.
There is at some point a phone call that makes it clear that he is sort of in trouble and needs to make sure that he does not miss his call time for being at home.
But... there's this slight problem that there's this really huge, intimidating, noxious gas belching tanker truck that is obscuring and obnoxious and kind of a pain.
And so he tries to get around it, and the truck, who blessedly, The key to this movie is that you never see who the trucker fully is.
You see a hand, you see a foot, but you never see the face, and they never talk.
You never know what it is.
It is a complete unknown.
Takes offense...
Well, actually, you don't even know that he takes offense.
He just responds by... harassing, aggravating, and eventually just straight up trying to murder our boy David on the road.
And it becomes this game of chasing and maneuvering and this incredible suspense thriller as they're trying to make their way down the road.
And...
I mean, my first immediate reaction is, oh, this comes a few years before Jaws, but this is Jaws if the shark were a truck.
The absolute triumph of this movie is how...
Again, this is made as a TV movie, very by movie standards, modest budget, but the way that Spielberg...
if you call this his first feature film, uses, with hardly any dialogue, completely, wonderfully tells the story visually through all of his facial reactions, the shots, the particular shot when he's coming around the bend, and it's a wide shot of his car, and he stops and freaks out, and you don't understand what's going on until it zooms out, and you see that it's actually from underneath the truck, and he's seeing the truck.
That shit... rules so hard uh this is like this is to me the thing that the takeaway from this movie is that steven spielberg is it is insanely talented when it comes to visual storytelling and uh will definitely be something i want to talk about when we talk about disclosure day but chris dual what what are what are your what are your thoughts on dual
Man, I loved that you brought up the parallel between Duel and Jaws because like taking even further, let's boil what Duel down is to its essence and full props to, I mean, we didn't give him nearly the props he deserves by name, but Richard Matheson, you know, A guy of no small repute.
I mean, just the guy who created I Am Legend and The Legend of Hell House and just one of the best speculative fiction writers of all time, as well as a killer television writer in his own right.
Boiled down to his essence, this is a person being terrorized by a nameless, shapeless force that doesn't have any reason.
Oh, wow.
Depending on how you count this, and I guess there's some disagreement here and there around what technically counts as the first movie, but Duel is definitely among the first feature-length things that Steven Spielberg put out.
It originally started off as a 75-minute TV movie and got such a glowing response that eventually they shot some additional stuff, bumped it up to 90 minutes, and eventually did see a theatrical release.
This is based on a script written by Richard Matheson, and stars Dennis Weaver as David Mann, really the only actor of serious amount of any real screen time.
He is a guy, David, who is trying to get home to his wife.
There is at some point a phone call that makes it clear that he is sort of in trouble and needs to make sure that he does not miss his call time for being at home.
But... there's this slight problem that there's this really huge, intimidating, noxious gas belching tanker truck that is obscuring and obnoxious and kind of a pain.
And so he tries to get around it, and the truck, who blessedly, The key to this movie is that you never see who the trucker fully is.
You see a hand, you see a foot, but you never see the face, and they never talk.
You never know what it is.
It is a complete unknown.
Takes offense...
Well, actually, you don't even know that he takes offense.
He just responds by... harassing, aggravating, and eventually just straight up trying to murder our boy David on the road.
And it becomes this game of chasing and maneuvering and this incredible suspense thriller as they're trying to make their way down the road.
And...
I mean, my first immediate reaction is, oh, this comes a few years before Jaws, but this is Jaws if the shark were a truck.
The absolute triumph of this movie is how...
Again, this is made as a TV movie, very by movie standards, modest budget, but the way that Spielberg...
if you call this his first feature film, uses, with hardly any dialogue, completely, wonderfully tells the story visually through all of his facial reactions, the shots, the particular shot when he's coming around the bend, and it's a wide shot of his car, and he stops and freaks out, and you don't understand what's going on until it zooms out, and you see that it's actually from underneath the truck, and he's seeing the truck.
That shit... rules so hard uh this is like this is to me the thing that the takeaway from this movie is that steven spielberg is it is insanely talented when it comes to visual storytelling and uh will definitely be something i want to talk about when we talk about disclosure day but chris dual what what are what are your what are your thoughts on dual
Man, I loved that you brought up the parallel between Duel and Jaws because like taking even further, let's boil what Duel down is to its essence and full props to, I mean, we didn't give him nearly the props he deserves by name, but Richard Matheson, you know, A guy of no small repute.
I mean, just the guy who created I Am Legend and The Legend of Hell House and just one of the best speculative fiction writers of all time, as well as a killer television writer in his own right.
Boiled down to his essence, this is a person being terrorized by a nameless, shapeless force that doesn't have any reason.
Oh, wow.
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