TMR 320 : Duel (1971) : TMR Movie Roundtable

"I'd like to report a truck driver that's been endangering my life."—David Mann (Dennis Weaver) in Duel. For the 20th TMR Movie Roundtable we are joined once again by our good friends Frank Johnson, Antony Rotunno, Mark Campbell and Oscar Campbell for a five-way discussion on the nerve-rattling 1971 thriller Duel, directed by the young Steven Spielberg and starring Dennis Weaver as Everyman pushed to the edge by a relentless, anonymous foe. David Mann (Dennis Weaver) is just an ordinary chap minding his own business and driving his beloved red Plymouth Valiant through the California desert, when a predatory monster of a smoke-spewing lorry (sorry, truck) inexplicably picks him as its unsuspecting prey. What starts as a routine car journey swiftly spirals into a heart-pounding game of cat-and-mouse with no rules and no escape. What's fuelling the truck's murderous pursuit? How does Spielberg turn a regular highway into a battlefield of primal fear? And what might this filmic clash of Man versus Machine have to say to us today? Join us as we examine the tension, explore the film's minimalist brilliance, and ask what "takeaways" might be gleaned from Spielberg's early TV/cinematic masterpiece. [Podcast theme music by Antony Raijekov (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). In accordance with the conditions of that licence TMR wishes to state that the fact that this music appears in TMR podcasts should in no way be understood as implying that its creator endorses anything produced by TMR.] [For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com]

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hello everybody. Julian Charles here of Themindreneude dot Com, coming
to you from the depths of the Lancashire countryside here
in the UK, and welcome to TMR three hundred and
twenty for our twentieth movie round Table, where we explore
various productions that sometimes connect to themes we've tackled on
the mind Renude over the last twelve years or so.

(00:37):
And today we are diving headfirst into the movie Duel,
Steven Spielberg's Gripping nineteen seventy one suspense thriller originally a
TV movie, later expanded for theatrical release, and the Duel,
if just by chance you've not seen it, is a lean,
intense tale of a lone motorist hunted by a monster

(00:58):
of a truck on the California Highways, a masterclass, i
would say, in minimalism and tension. And joining us to
discuss this cinematic gem are our good friends Frank Johnson
from the world capital of Nude Swimming in California, Mark
Campbell from Mastermind headquarters in Crayford in the UK and

(01:21):
Anthony Ratuno carrying out police surveillance at eleven Rollington Place, gentlemen,
welcome back to the round table.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Thank you, hello, Julia.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Sorry for my bad jokes there, but I've always got
to get them in, you know, it's a bit of
a tradition by now. Now you have to do it.
I'm just hoping that things are going to stay stable
here because I've got quite a new setup, a new
microphone and two computers joined together, new communication software, et cetera.
So let's hope it all works. So let's start with
a bit of a catch up then, So Anthony house
Life treating you at the moment, how are you getting on?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, I haven't really got any exciting news, to be honest,
just truck I was gonna say, trucking along.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
So I didn't mean that. I honestly didn't joined in
with mine.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
No, I did find I must obviously if you follow
the news, you just find the world's just getting madder,
and I start to feel a bit saner in.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
A way by contrast.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
Yeah, looking forward to this film.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Excellent, Frank, how are you doing over there in a California?
How's your cat? Psychotic Cats getting on?

Speaker 5 (02:25):
California? Is fine?

Speaker 6 (02:26):
The cat he now has taken to sitting with me
in the middle of whenever I eat and trying to hope.

Speaker 5 (02:32):
For some scraps.

Speaker 6 (02:33):
I guess he's still like beating me up. Occasionally he's
sleeping right now over in the chair.

Speaker 4 (02:38):
But yeah, it beats you up.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
That's curiously he does.

Speaker 6 (02:42):
Yeah, if I walk by, he'll rub on my leg
and he'll attack my foot.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
And my grandfather had one like that. It would attack
him on the stairs through the banisters. It's quite familiar. Mark.
How are you doing any find thanks bargin DVDs that
you've come across recently?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
I did buy a Louis Boonwell box set of I
think like twelve films for about eight pounds or something
in a shop. Unfortunately it's not got the one I
wanted was Exterminating Angel. But never mind, never mind, I'm fine,
thank you. Yep.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
And Oscar and her indoors all okay.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Her indoors is fine. Oscar's fine. We have both watched
this film together, so possibly later on we might have
his comments on it.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Excellent, that will be really good. Okay, We'll let's share
a little bit of personal experience with this film. Then,
I'm sure everybody has their tale to tell about this one,
because it's not exactly obscure, is it.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Well.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
I saw this, I think back in late seventies with
my dad. He absolutely loved it. I remember he sort
of got so wrapped up in it that he thought
it was He knew it wasn't real, you know what
I mean, but he had that sense of being so
wrapped up that it felt real to him when he
was kind of engaging with the main character day Man,
and when the Lorry was oh so I'm very British Anta, Well,

(04:04):
the Lorry the truck was being monstrous on the road.
My dad was going, oh what about that driving? How terrible?
How can anybody drive on that? You know? So yeah,
I never tire of watching it, and I have a
great affection for it. Partly because of that. Anybody else
got any experience to show about this film.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
I was wondering if it was was it a movie
drove one or not. I don't know if Frank You're
familiar with this, but there was a series that basically
they showed kind of cult films every Sunday, and then
they had a guy called Ala and Cox who would
introduce I always give it credit for just totally expanding
my appreciation film I don't know if this was.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
A movie drove, but I feel like it would kind
of fit.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
And it's a strange one because it's technically a limited setting.
Film limited setting you normally think of happening in one
room or something, but because the highway, unless you know
it's fairly anonymous, I suppose it's a limited setting. I
don't remember exactly when first time, but definitely teenage years
and just always liked it.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
One thing I did want to talk about a bit
later is the kinship with Jaws. I think most of
us have seen it, so referring to.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
It, all right, I'm going to have to admit it's okay.
While we were all fair, I actually admitted that I've
not seen it, So there you go. I know, it's
it's unbelievable somebody in the world who's not seen Jaws,
but I am one of those people. We are now.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
All I was going to say was that I'd already
seen Jaws a lot when the time I saw this.
So when I saw this, I thought, oh, this is
Jaws with the truck then four years earlier, so technically
Jaws is this with a shark. Yeah, So which way
you look at it? But no, I always liked it. Yeah,
I quite like those kind of minimalist films.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
I've got my diary entry here, obviously I have to
bring this out, and I absolutely this is eleventh of
December nineteen eighty one, so I think that's when I
first saw it. I would have been fourteen, so watched
due on ITV. The best TV movie I have ever seen,
surrealistic and quite meaningfully done Steve Spielberg. But I mean,

(06:08):
if I was watching on ITV, it would be with
ad breaks, and it's just I can't imagine watching this
with ad breaks because it would break the tension, ou
wouldn't it. Well, that's how it was originally made to
be with ad breaks, yeah, I guess, so.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
And do we know if we've seen the seventy five
minute version, because I've only ever seen.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
The ninety I think I must have done, because I
was very disappointed several years ago. I saw it on
I think it's ITV three or something like that, and
obviously had ad breaks, but it did not have the
bus scene with the children. I was appalled. I thought, oh,
have they taken it out in order to fit TV?
But of course I didn't realize at the time that

(06:45):
it was originally made for TV and it didn't have
that scene in. There are number of other bits that
it didn't have in. They then extended it, of course,
to put it in theatrical release. So maybe I did,
in fact see the TV version.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Oh so they would have gone back and reshot stuff
day to make it longer for the to release it.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
And yeah, well it was done over thirteen days and
then you needed three more days.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Right, I mean that would have been done at a much
later date then, wouldn't it that?

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Because in the thing I saw Spielberg he made out that,
oh yeah, they just added three days.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
But right now, let's clear this up. They did add
about three days originally while they were making the original
TV feature, but then a year or so later they
extended it by about fifteen minutes or so to make
it a theatrical release at ninety minutes actually actually eighty
five minutes for the European market. So they therefore added

(07:37):
the bus scene with the children and the lorry pushing
the car towards the train. They added that as well.
I think I think I'm not sure, but they might
even have added the beginning, you know, with them coming
out of the garage. I don't know, no doubt somebody
will correct me about that, but they added various bits
and pieces.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
I think the phone call with the wife was added
as well, because that's quite an interesting detail.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
That's right, because the actress wasn't in the TV version.

Speaker 5 (08:00):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Okay, So we'll cover quite a bit there already, haven't we.
No doubt we'll come back to some of those things.
I thought i'd give a quick plot summary for the
three people out there in the audience. We've not actually
seen this, so this really is very very short, okay
by my standards. So here we go. In Stephen Spielberg's
Dual nineteen seventy one, David Mann, a mild mannered salesman
played by Dennis Weaver, drives his red Plymouth Valiant through

(08:24):
the California desert after overtaking a rusty menacing tanker truck
or Lorrie as I keep saying, it's unseen driver or
largely unseen driver, begins an inexplicable, relentless pursuit, turning Man's
routine trip into a harrowing fight for survival. The psychotic
truck tailgates him, cuts him off, rams his car and

(08:46):
does everything it can to escalate this psychological duel by
and by increasingly frantic, Man attempts to identify the insane
driver at a roadside diner called Chuck's Cafe, but the
faceless antagonist remain deliberately elusive, continuing to heighten the terror. Eventually,
the chase having intensified to the point of existential crisis,

(09:07):
Man uses his wits to lure the truck into a
cliff side crash in which the huge beast of a
truck seems to die the death of a giant monster,
and the film ends as Man, battered but alive, literally
jumps for joy like a child as he stares at
the wreckage beneath him and sits in silence as the
sun sets. Now doubt that we'll have brought the scenes

(09:28):
back to people's minds in many many cases. So obviously
this is Steven Spielberg at a very young age twenty four,
I believe, and his first major production, as we said,
made for TV initially nineteen seventy one by Universal Television
for ABC's Movie of the Week, which they had in
the late sixties and early seventies, and then it was

(09:51):
made Yeah, seventy three or seventy two for Europe and
extended to ninety minutes. It's usually listed as his first feature,
although he did do some things earlier.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
On So Sugarland Express wasn't that first Sugarland.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Express seventy four so that was a bit later.

Speaker 6 (10:08):
Okay, he did an episode of that was a TV
good Luck Columbo as well.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
He did one I know of one. He might have
done more, but murdered by the book in seventy.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
One because he won won an award.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Had anybody see the name of the game. It was
another TV series. He did one episode for that called
La twenty seventeen. So it seems that by doing these
TV programs that gave him an in with the producer
of Duel, because this was already a project and they
were looking for somebody to direct it, and he applied
for it because his secretary said, hey, you might like

(10:44):
this project. She came across Richard Mattison's story in Playboy
magazine apparently and presented it and said, look, this is
the story you might want to go for, and he
liked it and applied to George Erickson. Sorry George Eckstein,
not ericson Eckstein said, look, I've done Colombo things like that,

(11:05):
and he was impressed and gave him the job. So
sometimes doing things like Colombo can get your head, which
is interesting.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
I think you learned about economy, didn't he? From TV?

Speaker 3 (11:15):
I suppose imagine the TV deadlines are pretty brutal, because
obviously the deadlines this was very close.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, very much so.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
And I have read the short story. It's just very short,
twenty five pages or something. Essentially, it's just the thrust
of the film. It hasn't got things like the things
they added for the cinemas, hadn't got his talking with
his wife and the argument. And it's basically starts out
the first page overtakes the truck and then it just
you know, from there on it hasn't got pushing the

(11:44):
truck onto the train lines and stuff. It's a bit
bizarre because he gives the truck driver a name Keller,
yes on the side of the van, because the David
Mann character, you know, man Emmet, and then he reads
it first as killer and he looks to get oh no, no,
it's Keller, right, and then the character himself says, well,
that seems to make the mystery a bit less giving

(12:06):
him a name. Odd, you don't get that in the film.
Do you don't know what he's called. He's going towards
San Francisco for an appointment. Is he Is he going
to San Francisco in the film? Is that mentioned? I
can't remember. No, I don't remember the story. I mean
the difference is he's driving through lush forest and the
greenery and the story. I mean, obviously the film's quite different.

(12:27):
I mean, the one thing that I noticed was very
different was the ending of the story, because it just
ends with man going up this sort of side road
up towards a quarry, which a bit like in the film,
and then behind him the truck takes the corner I
guess too sharply tips over and just falls into the quarry.
So actually man has got nothing to do with the

(12:47):
He's just oh okay, it's a really weird ending. It's
considerably better in the film that man is actually becomes right,
takes control at last of the situation.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
He wins the dual effect, doesn't he For those people
who don't know, he puts his briefcase, doesn't he down
on the on the gas pedal and then jumps out
of the car, and the truck carries on and pushes
the car and itself over the cliff. So he wins
the duel, but he doesn't in the novelette, well, no,
he just the.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Truck driver just loses control and crashes, you know, the end.
It's almost like I can't be bothered to write anymore.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Was it a red? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (13:29):
That's interesting because I don't know how much this Jaws thing,
but in the Jaws novel, the shark kills two of
the quintin Hooper and then basically he's about to attack
Brody and then just sort of gets tired, almost gets tired.
He's worn down by all the barrels and the harpoon
and everything, and he just dies. And obviously the film.

(13:50):
Don't to spoil it for you, Julian, if you.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Watch, okay, I will watch it one day.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
It's a bit more explosive.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I think I said I might watch them in reverse order,
start with the Jaws the Revenge or whatever, and then
go to go to three D and then Jaws two,
and then eventually worked back to the original Spielberg film.
That's perverse of me, I know, but we are.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Mathterson got the inspiration because he was tailgated on November twenty,
second Night and sixty three. Do you feel like that
might be the biggest news story that day? Yeah, I'm
not sorry.

Speaker 5 (14:21):
I'm not I'm just saying that I read the same thing.
You're right on that day he did. Yeah, it's not
that weird.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
That's the connection with our themes on the show.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
How about that?

Speaker 2 (14:32):
It was he tailgated in Daley Plaza or.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
They've been playing golf for something, haven't they, And they
were talking about this and then this person tailgated them.

Speaker 4 (14:43):
Yeah, they heard the news and a bit shaken, and
they said, oh, let's forget the golf and go ahead.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
And then he tried to get people. I think he
tried to get TV companies or something interested in it,
and they thought, well, there's just not enough here for
a production. Get chased across the desert by Lorry you know?

Speaker 6 (14:58):
Okay, that they would kind of I find that a
little weird. They would reject it because I think he
had written a number of stories that ended up on
the Twilight Zone. You know that's right, Like, yes, Nightmare
at twenty thousand feet or whatever, they had a William
Shatner in it. He wrote that story and believe, and
that he's written several other Yeah, sure that were on there.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, something like sixteen of them, I think if I
remember correctly.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
Yeah, a lot of other things. Yeah. He actually also
wrote Charles three D. I'm not making this up.

Speaker 5 (15:28):
How are you kidding?

Speaker 3 (15:29):
He wrote A Shrinking Man, which was made. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, right,
that's great book. That's good.

Speaker 6 (15:37):
In preparing to talk about this film, I had looked
up what was any symbolism in this movie? And they
say that the perception of masculinity was one of the
themes because at the beginning, you know the guy on
the radio talking about being a house husband, right, and
so he's taking on a traditionally female role, and then
you see man having some problems with his wife. And

(15:58):
when you brought up the Shrinking Man too, that whole
story was also about the man is shrinking symbolic of masculinity,
is shrinking and becoming less of our influence or.

Speaker 5 (16:08):
So I can't help up.

Speaker 6 (16:09):
Notice that that was possibly a theme that Mathieson must
like working with or exploring. I don't know if that
came across in the written story.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
It's not so much. It's essentially played in the film Yeah,
the story, he's a similar character. He doesn't like driving
fast and he's a bit scared by the other driver,
and so it's all that similar, but not to the
extent that the film takes it right.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
Would you mind if I just read my short paragraph about.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
This just one second. I just wanted to say that
I'd not picked that business about the masculinity up from
what Spielberg had said himself. Yeah, I picked it up,
as you know, other people had interpreted, and I know
that Spielberg said something like he had some views about it,
of course as the director, but he said a lot
of the symbolic stuff tends to come from Europe people

(16:56):
servering things in Europe, so we're mostly Europe on this podcast,
so we can we can play around with it as well.
But yeah, yeah, gone gone then, Anthony.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, masculinely loss of it and gaining control by using
in their resources. The every man is nothing special, And
of course I guess you all know that the David
man is supposed to symbolize.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
In every Man.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah, the radiophone in his a house husband, his wife
is designated head of the household. Man's wife complains that
he did nothing when a man tried to molest her
or make a pass at her. He sits in a
corner of Chuck's cafe. That's pink chosen quite deliberately, aren't they.
He remarks that he's back in the jungle again, having

(17:36):
to rely on primitive instincts. Truckers looked tough and primitive,
while man is a bit more refined and clearly not
much of a fighter. By the end, he's successfully abandoned
his inhibitions and fought fire with fire. Giddy with excitement
at his achievement.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, Ey, just that pink cafe. But I looked at
it and thought it looks so realistic, unkempt, looks like
he's just gone in the filmed it. I thought, would
he have painted it pink? Or it just seems so
right that that was a sort of pink.

Speaker 4 (18:02):
Maybe they just found it.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
I don't know it was It fits, doesn't it so well?

Speaker 5 (18:07):
Apparently the Tucks Diner is still standing.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Too, all right, Yes, it's a French restaurant, I think though,
but still there. Okay, we'll come back to meanings and
things a bit more in a bit. I just wanted
to say a few more things. Ask you what you
think about it. What did you think about the music?
By the way, a guy called Billy Goldenberg, who I
tend to mix up with Jerry Goldsmith, I don't know. Yeah,

(18:30):
I thought it was quite effective. Actually, I can hardly
imagine the film with any other music. Now, of course
there's not a lot of it.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Is good, isn't it. That's the good thing. There's not
a lot of it. And then when it's very psycho,
I mean it made psycho. There's the strings, very psycho,
a lot of strings Jaws or whatever proto Jaws. No, No,
I was just going to say, I don't remember the
music much, which I think is a good thing because
it just suits the action.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
I feel like I always say that unless it's obviously
like Jaws or Rocky or something that's so or Star
Wars or something.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Yeah, it does the job. Books.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, I think a lot of it's conceived of as
sound rather than music. You know, there's a lot of
percussive stuff going on, a weird percussive instruments. It reminded
me of sort of John Cage and a guy called
Harry Parks who made his own instruments. I even wonder
whether there's some prepared piano in there. At times it
sounds a bit like the articulation of a piano, but

(19:27):
weird percussive sounds, and I wonder whether that's what's going on.
It's written pretty quickly apparently, and Billy Goldenberg had worked
with Spielberg before, but I think it worked really well.
What he did.

Speaker 6 (19:37):
It reminded me very much of another Mathison story that
was adapted, which was The Nightmare of twenty thousand Feet.
I can't remember if it was the film version from
Twilight's on the movie or the ashore episode with Chatner
in it, but I want to say it reminded me
of the one with John Let's go in the movie
Just suspense hit you just scare the party of music,
you know, And I thought it worked really well in

(19:57):
this movie. But I was just like, wow, does the
same composer do every Mathison adaptation. I don't know who
did the music and Twilight's Going, but it really reminded
me of that sort of feeling to it, you know,
convenying that sense of terror and run really well.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Right, yeah you know whathe thing it really sticks in
my mind is right at the end, you know, when
everything's calm and the truck has died as it were,
You just get that weird sort of repeated I don't
actually describe it. It's like really high strings. I think
it might be synthesized. Actually, it's just like a weird
chord high up and just goes. It just carries on
like that. It's just perfect.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Because I can't remember it. I was wondering, is there
a point where it goes quite fast? Is the action's
going Is it not that kind of music?

Speaker 1 (20:39):
No, there is at times. I definitely, Yeah, there is
lots of repeated rhythm.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
I feel like, yeah, yeah, I think it kicks in,
doesn't it Probably not when he overtakes the truck, but
when the truck starts coming for him, I think it
sort of then kicks in. So probably after about ten
minutes or so. Yeah, I think you get more and
more of it.

Speaker 6 (20:55):
Yeah, And I think when the truck drivers trying to
run him down at the Rattle Snakes Place.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, yeah, Okay. What about the cast then Dennis Weaver
he was the right man for the job. Spielberg was
desperate for him to do that part.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Apparently he's excellent. I think he's excellent, isn't he I
think he is. Doesn't he play some cowboy detective McLeod. Yeah,
I mean I've never seen it, but.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
I know him. Oh I used to watch that as
a child.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, that's all I know him from.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
Have you seen Touch of Evil?

Speaker 1 (21:23):
No? That?

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Oh that's so good. You got to watch that.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, it's amazing. Do you a loother good film?

Speaker 1 (21:30):
I've seen the clip. Just thought I've got to see
that clip. If that was so important to Spielberg that
he thought that's the guy I need. So I did
see Weaver doing that.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
Because the original idea is that the tension with Bill,
that he'd end up like that at the end of
the film. But he doesn't quite get there. No, because
that Touch of Evil scene is unbelievable. I don't seen
anyone that nervous. You know, I didn't quite get there,
but it was obviously Spielberg knew that it was there
if he needed it, you know, I'm sure he could
have conjured it up ten years later.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
I wonder whether he was influenced by mcla as well,
because you've got the you know, that sense of the
cowboy in New York City, naive but not naive at
the same time, sort of thing, a man out of
his comfort zone, in his comfort zone and then suddenly
out of his comfort zone. I wonder if there was
some sort of influence there and then. But yeah, I agree,
I thought it's brilliant.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, I thought he was just saying, call back to
an earlier film. We've done the appointment because it's not
dissimilar individual in a way, perhaps you could say this
is a symbol of masculinity. I certainly is what he's kind
of like, exhibits a kind of cowardly side, doesn't he
that in Dennis Weaver in this film, and he's going
to the appointment, and of course something happens on the
road to the appointment. You know.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yeah, the Appointment had a phone booth scene as well,
didn't it.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
I think I mentioned we did the Appointment.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
In which he did himself. Apparently that phone booth scene. Yeah,
I love that it was just timed so that he
could get out safely before the truck hit it as well. Done.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, Yeah, something that struck me watching this. I think
perhaps we take it for grant. I take it for granted.
There are no special effects. By that, I mean there's
blue screen or green screen or anything. It is all
done in camera. Everything you see is happening, and there's
tons of stuff of him. It's clearly him driving the car,
isn't it Dennis Weaver?

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Most of the time it is.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
I mean there must be some shots with a stun double,
but he's going at quite some speed, you know, and
the trucks behind him, and obviously cutting it together to
make it look more dangerous than it is. But I
think it's so impressive that it's all being done for real.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
You know they had several cameras as well, didn't they
around that car because you get back shots of in
front and side and the one on the bonnet looking
through the windscreen. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
And there's a brilliant shot with the camera is in
a car going past him, I think, and then it
goes past him and then goes past the truck in
front of him, and it's just it's so fluid, you know,
The camera work and the film is incredible.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
It is it is.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
There's almost no still shots. It's all moving and fantastic.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Apparently the production manager thought that that couldn't be done.
I wanted it to be in studio, and Shpielberg had
to fight to say no, no, I want to do
this outside, and they gave him the benefit of the diet,
and that's why they had three extra days stuck on
at the end. But yeah, they were going to stick
it in the studio. Would have disaster, wouldn't it.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
I'd imagine the driving background.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
I mean everyone everyone was doing it. Obviously Hitchcock did
it all the time in his films, so to not
do it at all it is really impressive.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
And the phone booth thing was good because what they
did they set up flags or something, and when the
stunt driver was driving the truck, if Dennis Weaver hadn't
left the phone booth by time he reached the last flag, then.

Speaker 4 (24:31):
He was going to just veer off. And I think
the stunt driver was amazing apparently.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
You know, there's still an element of danger that absolutely
that's taken for granted.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Big element of danger. I wouldn't have wanted to do
that for all the cowardice. I'm not sure about the
actual man himself.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, yeah, that.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Stunt driver was top in his class. Guy called Kerry Lofting,
did loads and loads of stuff. Apparently great technician as well.
Bullet French connection smoking the bandit all sorts of stuff.
He had lots of different names professionally, so he was
William Carey loft In. He was carry lofting, carry lofting,
carry loft on, Gary Loft. I don't know why so

(25:13):
many names, but we are said to him, I want
somebody who is a mean sob, and apparently, well you've
chosen the right guy.

Speaker 6 (25:23):
Then I heard that story a little different. I was
just going to say it, okay, the story I read.
He asked Spielberg why the truck driver would do this
to this guy, and he's like, well, you're just a
mean solb.

Speaker 5 (25:37):
I like your version a little better action.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
I don't know which is true. Something along those lines
happened with the driving.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
They used the camera car that was used in Bullet,
didn't They low angle's long lenses and then they had
the cliffs going by, and it's all brilliantly gives the illusion.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
That it's much faster than it.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Yes, they said there's an art for stunt drivers. There's
an art to driving at a safe speed but making
it look like right, you know this is I don't know.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
Obviously there's camera tricks as well.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
But yeah, they must have gone at some speed at
times because the composer Billy Goldenberg was spill wanted him
in the seat of the truck just to experience his life,
and apparently he was freaked out initially, so it must
have been pretty hairy at times.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
Oh no, it's nothing like French Connection.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
I won't going to it now, but like French Connections,
you look into how they did that card chase.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Has anyone seen a film called Unhinged with Russell Crowe? No, no,
because it's sort of similar premise. It's twenty twenty. It's
about a woman taking I think a child to school
and there's a truck I think it's just a great
big jeep at the lights and she just beeps it
to say move on, and from that moment on the
truck is out to get to. Russell Crowe is out
to get to So it's kind of like a really

(26:50):
really violent, really stupid because it just goes off into ridiculous.
It just you think, what really, It's like they take
somebody seeing dual and gone, let's do this times one hundred.
But the premise is similar. I recommend it's good fun.
It's great fun. If you like Russell crow It's great.
He just plays it out and out nasty sop.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
I was going to ask Mark, when you read the story,
was there a red car in it? I can't remember, Okay,
Spielberg wanted a red car. It wasn't bothered that it
should be a Plymouth Valiant, but he wanted a red
car against the scenery to be picked out easily.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Fair enough.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
And what about the truck? Was that specified or was
that another decision that Spielberg made.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
A truck and a trailer. It said, I've got it here.
I should be out of search, didn't I We.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Talk about the casting of the truck in a minute, June,
because that's really interesting.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, that's a nice cast. There aren't that many. Yeah, quite,
there's not much cast to talk about. We have to
talk about the vehicles instead.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
Yeah, the way it was cast was brilliant.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
I've got okay. So he eyed the truck with cursory disapproval.
It was a huge gasoline tanker pulling a tank trailer,
each of them having six pairs of wheels. He could
see that was not a new rig, but was dented
and in need of renov It's tanks painted a cheap
looking silvery color man wondered if the driver had done
the painting himself. He's got the flammable thing that was

(28:09):
in the film. Isn't it flammable on the back? I think,
which I guess you need for the ending because it,
you know, explodes, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
No, the lorry doesn't explode, doesn't it?

Speaker 4 (28:17):
The film doesn't know the car does.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Okay, I think the car blows up.

Speaker 6 (28:23):
I had read that Spielberg had changed it because he
didn't want it to explode at the end, because I
think at that time it must have already been overdone
or whatever. Okay, in the written story, I believe it
does explode.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah, technically it's a mistake because they had the flammable
thing and they'd already been filming some of it before
they'd maybe worked the ending out.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (28:43):
Well, I had read that someone suggested that the reason
it didn't explode is because the tanker was empty, and
so that's why he could go so fast through the movie.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Is his tank.

Speaker 6 (28:52):
Which makes you wonder like he had either just dropped
something off, was going to go pick something up, or
maybe he just was had.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
Been out of work for so long that's why he's mad.
That was actually another symbolic thing somebody picked up on.

Speaker 6 (29:05):
It's funny, but like someone had picked up and maybe
you know, it's like it's symbolically it's some sort of
like he's just taking revenge on some guy who's got
it better than him, you know, he's down on his luck,
truck or whatever.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Right, Yeah, I like the idea that he's been out
of work for some time. That might explain why he's
got six is it six number plates at the front
of the lory, Yeah, suggesting that he's had six previous
victims on the road.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
Yeah, he's like a serial killer, isn't he in all
different states as well?

Speaker 6 (29:31):
Yes, I like that idea, And that's the first thing
I thought of when I saw that opening shot or whatever.
But I was looking at up too, I'm like, why
was there six license plates? Supposedly, at the time this
was filmed, if you were a trucker and you were
operating interstate here in the US, you had to have
a license plate for each state that you were working in,
whereas now it's like you just have one plate and

(29:53):
you're good for wherever.

Speaker 5 (29:54):
But like back then when they filmed this show, that
was the thing.

Speaker 6 (29:58):
Isn't it so unfortunately what I don't know if this
is true, but that is what I read online, that
that was just how it was back then and not
other victims.

Speaker 5 (30:06):
I do really like the idea of other victims.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
That must just be a European interpretation.

Speaker 6 (30:12):
Yeah, well, I mean I thought there too until I
looked it up and I'm like, oh, okay, I guess
the decision.

Speaker 5 (30:18):
I think it's a natural interpretation that.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, absolutely, I guess. The decision not to have it
blow up, as far as the film is concerned, is
to accentuate the idea that it's a monster dying and
you can have all that business of the crashing down
the side and then you have the dripping oil and
all this. Don't you worries it's all blowing up? Then
it would take away from that.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
I think, you know, the thing about the sound as
it's dying, as the truck's quote unquote dying.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
I have, but of course, not having seen Jaws, I
don't appreciate the significance of it going and tell us
about it.

Speaker 4 (30:49):
Right. So there's a film called I think it's called
The Land Unknown. I think I've got that right. It's
a dinosaur film.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
It's something like that, and there's a kind of roar
or a grown the creature gives just as dying. So
Spielberg used that here as the truck's going over, and
then he used it for the Shark as well.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
Yes, and he also used another thing as well.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
There was a thing where he had six cameras set up,
I think, but one actually captured the whole death quote unquote,
and there's a bit where you see a load of
dust and then the truck re emerges out of the dust.

Speaker 4 (31:22):
And again he copied that in Jaws.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
You see the disappear, then you see like a blood
and then the Finn comes back. So Spielberg is into
that kind of thing, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
He is absolutely like these links between his films. I
was going to say, there's a link with some of
the carst Actually, did anybody pick up on the elderly
couple in the film they are countersp so in close
Encounters they are implanting number one and implanty number two
in the helicopter scene, as Amy Douglas and Alexander Lockwood,

(31:57):
the old couple in the car.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
A couple again as a couple.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
So it's like an in the universe couple that's links
dull with counters.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
That we just talked about. How the truck was cast, Julia.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yes, absolutely, there's so much to talk about, isn't there.
I don't know where to go, but yeah, yeah, we
can just hop all over the place.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (32:18):
The casting of the truck, Yeah, Spielberg talked about it
as a casting. So they showed them seven trucks and
one seemed to have a face on it.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
He immediately said, you've got the part.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Almost he auditioned it.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
He talked about having the truck in makeup as well.
Just as we was in one room getting made up,
the truck was being smeared with grease and bugs. Is brilliant, Yeah,
absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
That's right. So it was a Peter built to eight one.
It was called the needle Nose as a nickname because
it's sort of a retro snout like face. But when
they made the extension to this for the theatrical release,
they didn't have exactly the same truck, so they had
to modify a different one called a Peter built three
five one. But you don't notice the difference, do you.
I didn't notice difference. I had to find that out.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Somebody will somewhere notice I'm sure, yes, the US more
than one car, didn't they. I mean it stands to reason.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
I guess so three or four of them here.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Apparently, if you look at it closely, there will be
differences in terms of the damage and the car. Yeah,
talking about looking at things closely, did anybody see Spielberg's reflection.
I saw him once in the phone booth. I hadn't
seen that before.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
In the back of the car.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah apparently, so, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
It just quite happened because he taught in that interview
about Hitchcock being on his shoulder. Intentional cameos yet some
real rando.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Well, I was wondering whether we could choose some favorite
scenes to talk about. We've been rather general so far,
but there are some smashing particular scenes, aren't there. So
does anybody want to go first? I mean, okay, I'll
go first with the I just I just love this
the pest control car. It's just a silly little thing,
but I love the fact that he thinks that he

(34:00):
obviously thinks it's a police car will pull over and
it's not. It's just best control. But he's got grebelpes
printed on the side, which, of course I never realized
that before until I read it somewhere just passed me by.
But yeah, of course it should feel go backwards.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Oh oh wow. Yeah, I really like the scene that
now I realized it wasn't in the original cut with
a school bus. It's an odd scene because it's absolutely
brilliant because the truck turns out to be a goodie
at the end because he helps push, you know, he
shows you how muctually hates the man character. He's nice
to everyone else, So he pushes the school bus. That's

(34:38):
a good turn for the bus driver because.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Don't you think that's gas lighting? Yeah? Yeah, I mean
I trying to make that man feel like he's going
mad al this, you know.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
But there's a brilliant there's a weird scene, and I
don't know if any else picked up on.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
It was just me.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
The driver is there with the kids, he's all come
and help, help, and he's kind of really urgent, like
it's panicked, almost to get the school bus moving. And
then man is pushing against and he says, come on,
come on, like its urgency to get out of it,
almost as if he knows there's something scary around.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
I thought that was a bit odd, especially odd since
later the children are running around not actually on the
road but near the road, and man of course sees
the truck arrive again with its sort of shining cat's
eyes in the tunnel, and there's some bad language I
noticed they included in the theatrical release. They got more
able to do so, and he's going, you know, get
these children off, and the bus drivers saying, hey, no, no,

(35:31):
they're fine, So that rather contradicts the urgency. I know,
it's it before.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
It's a bit weird. It's almost like it would make
sense if they've filmed it after the event, they knew
what they've got and they thought, well, we're trying up
the anti vibe, you know, giving some more attention to it.
But I just think it's a really tense scene with
the kids milling around, you know, oh my gosh, what's
going to happen? And that's very Jaws like, having kids
being threatened by this, you know, mysterious, massive thing that's uncontrollable.

Speaker 4 (35:57):
Jaws like.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Apparently there are some people who are of the opinion
that these extra beats are sort of slow the action down,
even stopping at Chuck's Cafe. It's slows it. It should
stay on the road. And I don't agree with that
at all. I think actually moving from the physical action,
the physical tension, to the psychological dimension is actually does
keep the tension going, but in a different way. I

(36:18):
think it's very powerful.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah, I agree, And I think the inner monologue is
supposed to bring us closer to Man.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
I think man, Yeah, David Mann, that's taken from straight
from the short story. Actually that internal is yeah, pretty
much Masons lines spoken.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
That's interesting. See, I wondered whether that was a good idea.
I have sometimes wondered is it really necessary to have vocalization?
You know, couldn't you just do it with acting and looks?
And I think maybe not. Actually, in the end, there's
too much to convey.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
I think it works.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, I think it works.

Speaker 6 (36:52):
You could do it visually, but I think it'd be
incredibly difficult, and given his tight time table, he probably
have done it. I mean, like you could have like
the honor David Lynch would hold on somebody that my door.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
What's a very suitable moment for that to happen?

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Lynch?

Speaker 4 (37:10):
Yeah, Steven Spielberg, what are.

Speaker 6 (37:12):
You talking about I'm sorry. They were checking to make
sure I got my screens out. They're doing window cleaning,
so I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Would definitely include that in the show there, Frank.

Speaker 6 (37:25):
That's terrible here the cat he was a little bit
freaked out by that. But yeah, so you could definitely
can be that visually the tension. And I think like
if you watched Sergio on Western, like that's he really
answer attention. But I mean in three days, you really,
I don't know you could do that.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
I kind of I think I would say it works
well for this character because he's he was in constant
dialogue in his head. Isn't he constantly thinking about things
and worrying about things and what's going on? Why you
doing that? How can he go so first? And that
kind of makes sense that he would have this internal
monologue going on all the time. I think it works
really well.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, and there's more nuanced that you wouldn't been able
to include if it was just expressions. Yeah, although the
business about the Western, you know, there are tips, aren't
there towards the spaghetti Western at times, So it wouldn't
have been out of character to do that. There's some
scenes where it's clearly emulating a dual in a spaghetti western.
I think Truck's Cafe is perhaps my favorite bit of

(38:25):
the film, actually, I think I think it's it's a
great scene or collection of scenes.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Really, it's not so much a scene that were like
a moment when he falls asleep. Bielberg actually used the
sound of a truck for the train right for the audience.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
It's a truck. But the idea was a David was
brilliant of a dream, maybe he thinks, but then he
starts laughing. I love that.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
It's so believable, isn't it. That's exactly what would happen
if you've been so terrified by this truck and you
were coming out of that dream. That's what you'd hear,
isn't it. It totally makes sense.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
The idea of laughing at yes, absolutely is that.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
The bit that where you get lots of fantastic long
shots of environment and then right there is the red
car in the distance. You can just see the red
car framed by there's like a scrap peep of old cars,
and then there's his car. That's the one, and you
get another shot and oh, yes, there's the red car.
It's brilliantly done, really artie.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Old cars from the forties and things and rusting.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
In something a little bit disquieting about the scrap people
of old cars, especially in this film, I guess because
that's where he's heading, isn't he Essentially he thinks he's
going to end up on the scrappy.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
That's some lovely use of camera working, isn't there. And
then one thing I really love it. You know where
he goes into phone his wife laundrette as well this place,
his foot up on a table or something, and he
has to put his foot down because this lady wants
to go past with her washing. And then she goes
back to use the washing machine or whatever it is,
and that she opens the door and the camera actually

(39:56):
shoots through the glass of the door, and you see
David Man on the phone in the background, and all
this washing is in the foreground, as if to say
that life just carries on. He may be terrified by
what's going on, but yeah, I love that. It is
a lovely touch totally. One of the things I love
about that Chuck's cafe scene is when he approaches the guy.

(40:19):
You actually to challenge somebody who thinks might be the trucker.
Of course it isn't. The trucker isn't even in there.
Is he's still gaslighting him? If the guys just eating
a sandwich and drinking a beer, and David Man just
sidles up to him almost backwards and just says, you know,
come on, what was he saying? Knock it off or something?
And then you get a really low shot. That's it.

(40:41):
And you get a really low shot of this guy,
you know, underneath his chin and he's just chewing away
at this sandwich. That so works. I don't know why
that works. Why is it? Why I have such a
low camera angle? And he goes, we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Did anyone notice the funny bit in the Chuck's Cafe?
He says something like, I want cheese on r y e.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yes, that's it.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
I mean what it's such a sparse dialogue. Why they.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Just like, I suppose it's something odd that somebody might say.
I know, people do say old things.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
I know it's funny. I just said, it's amazing. Is
that in the story.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Is that in the short story?

Speaker 5 (41:23):
No?

Speaker 2 (41:23):
I don't think. He doesn't spell it out.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
To point out the difference. Aren't they I suppose this
is an English film. I reckon they would have really
played up the class element, you know. Ah, yes, I
had like a real middle very solidly middle class hero
among all these truckers.

Speaker 4 (41:39):
You know.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Well with the inner dialogue thing where he's speaking inside
his head, you know, I love the fact that it
goes whispered. Eventually, he's whispering inside his head like that,
as if that's you would be speaking under your breath
if you were actually articulating it. I love that that
adds an urgency to it. I love the opening of it.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Credits for ages and it just starts on a black
screen and you get the radio. I think, oh, what's
going on in After literally five six seconds, then the
camera you're pulling out of this garage, aren't you? And
then you're driving and just like the first two or
three minutes, is driving along. It's very classy. Really, do
you know if that was done for the cinema or
I don't know. I have a feeling it may be

(42:20):
for the cinema, but I'm not sure about that. It
sets they have footsteps at the beginning, don't you. Yeah,
gets in the car, backs out the garage and off
you go.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
And you are David Mann, aren't you, because you have
his view through the winter ages. Yes, so it establishes
that he's every man and you are every man.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, yeah, I love that. It's such a bold and
clever opening.

Speaker 4 (42:40):
You get so much at the radio show as well.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
And somebody says, somebody's interviewed saying and they say they
play meat. Yeah yeah, what's that all about?

Speaker 4 (42:51):
What do you mean you play meat musically? I guess yeah. Oh.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Do you know There's something I hadn't realized until I
was thinking about it, For this is the next you know,
after the bus scene, the school bus scene, the next
event is the train sequence where the truck is pushing
David Man's car towards the train. Obviously not in order
to kill him, because he could have pushed him in
you know, it's more terrifying him that that is, in

(43:23):
a sense an opposite of what happened in the scene before,
where he was pushing the school bus to help. But
now he's pushing David Mann to hinder. I did not
realized that well.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
And I don't know how they did that, but that
looks incredibly dangerous, doesn't it. I mean, is that the
stunt driver. Then I guess was it could well be
there's a real train, there's a real car, there's a
real it's all going on, but it looks amazing. It
looks so so close. I guess they cheat it with
angles and it's not really being pushed obviously, but it's
just there's a real, big blooming train going past.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
That was added, wasn't it? That was another one of
these added scenes?

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Right, Okay, I'm quite a fan of the Incredible Hulk
TV series, and there is an episode of Incredible Hulk
that's all about David Banner, I think being is he
being chased by I don't know what it is. Anyway,
he falls in with some woman and they go they
go off country and they use loads and those of
shots from duel. That's right, but it's brilliant because there

(44:20):
are two of them in the car, but they always
and the woman says, I'm just going to go down
and get something from the glove compartment, and then you
cut to the shot of David man in the car
because because there's any one of him, so they always
get round it by having somebody duck out of sight.
Then you have a long shot of the car. It
must be about ten minutes of footage from that film
in that episode.

Speaker 4 (44:38):
Yeah, universal, aren't they? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (44:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (44:41):
Yeah? Ever since then now essentially sort of copyright all.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
His Yeah, he hated that. Apparently didn't he can understand that.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
The episode is called Never Give a Truck an Easy Yes, yeah, yes.
But about the sequel, I didn't know there was one
duel too. It's called Throttle.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Anyone seeing that? No fairly horrendous?

Speaker 5 (45:04):
Are you? Is that a real movie?

Speaker 4 (45:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (45:06):
There is a real movie's two thousand and three. But
the main character's surname is Weaver, okay, And Dennis Weaver
appears he's in it.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
I haven't seen it. By the way.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
They're in a parking lot and this red whatever that car,
whatever type of car that was, is just going really
slowly in the parking lot, and they make eye contact
and Dennis we were just eyeballs in for.

Speaker 4 (45:32):
I won't be visiting that one. And there was a bar.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
There was to make a prequel, the Troubled Childhood of.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
The Truck Driver.

Speaker 4 (45:44):
Yeah, I wonder what that would mark.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
You're a filmmaker, Okay, I'll go.

Speaker 5 (45:54):
Did they really make a board game of this movie?

Speaker 4 (45:56):
Though?

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Because I believe so you board game. Yeah, apparently it was,
which was not very popular. I'm told, oh wow, yeah, excellent.
Oh there's no where, there's no They couldn't really be.
There's no shooting star in this film. Oh yeah, that's
a Spielberg thing. Yeah, because none of it's at night,
so I guess they couldn't do that.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
I suppose there's the sun at the end. Is that
a shooting No, it's a star.

Speaker 4 (46:22):
It is.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Half of the theme is included.

Speaker 4 (46:33):
What about the truck as a corporation. I'm trying to
break around to some topic.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
I was going to say, actually, can we talk about
possible meanings and themes? I know we touched on that earlier,
but we should talk a little more and feel free
to be as European as you would like, even you, Frank.

Speaker 4 (46:50):
Sure.

Speaker 5 (46:52):
Maybe the lorry driver was part of the Brotherhood of
the Bell.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
They're going to get revenge, yes, because he betrayed his oath.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
Perhaps, Yeah, yeah, he recognized that.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
I was here just before he goes to bed. Want
to ask him what he thought the film. I'm going
to put headphones on him so he can talk to him,
Is that right?

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (47:14):
I don't know what he's just going to talk to you.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Hello, Oscar, Hello, Hello, Oscar.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Hello, Hello.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Now, your daddy tells me that you have seen the
film Duel with the Lorry. Yes, and the car? Yes,
we have. Now what did you think of it? Did
you like the film?

Speaker 5 (47:32):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (47:33):
I really liked a bit where I was chasing after
the car.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Did you find it at all scary with that big
Lorry doing all the chasing?

Speaker 3 (47:40):
No, not scary.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
I found it funny.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
Did you find it?

Speaker 1 (47:44):
I say, what about at the end when the Lorry
dies like a big monster at the end? Was that scary?

Speaker 2 (47:51):
It's a little bit scary that it was. You thought
that he should change the cut of his car, didn't you?
Is this color of the car.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
That would have been a good idea so that the
lorry driver wouldn't recognize it anymore? Yeah, it's good thinking,
very lateral thinking there.

Speaker 5 (48:12):
Yes, yeah, interesting, he s enough.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah. Nice to speak to you, Oscar.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Nice to speak to you.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Very good.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
Nice to speak to you.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
Yeah, bye bye bye, bye bye bye, good night, good night, Oscar.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Very good.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
So, Mark, we have all your bank account passcords now. No,
you've got your headphones back on and you can hear
what's going on?

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, no, I couldn't. Was that all right?

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Was he right? Yes, he's very good.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Did you give some good m yeah, very good. Now
we enjoyed it. I thought I was worried something. I
was worried whether he would find it scary, because he
doesn't like scenes in films where people get scared of things.
He sort of tends to leave the room. But he
was okay with that film. He was all right. He
kept wanting me to tell him what, what's going to
happen next, What's going to happen next? I whish I
guess he's a bit of a reassurance thing. I said

(49:06):
to We'll just watch it. What happens next? What happens next?
He thought it was just saying he thought it was
more funny than anything else.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
That's interesting.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
All right.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Then it's going to turn to the meanings and things
then to end with. So we have from Spielberg himself.
It doesn't say very much in terms of meanings, but
apparently according to somebody's what's his name Stephen A Waltz book,
Stephen Spielberg and Duell, there's a suggestion that he thinks
of Duell as an indictment of the mechanization of life,

(49:36):
and that David Mann is this every man battling this
machine that is like a sort of relentless, unreasoning aggression
of a mechanical world. I suppose that that makes sense.
And bullying is another thing that Spielberg talks about, the
targeting of an individual for no clear reason, you know,
the theme of vulnerability and powerlessness. Any other thoughts about

(49:59):
possible all ways of interpreting this, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:02):
Just the thing I was saying earlier about.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Yeah, we've talked about lots of masculinity, but also going beyond.
And I think the speeding in the car is supposed
to symbolize you know, maybe he's a kind of a
cautious guy, isn't he. You know, he's quite afraid of
I don't know who he'd say he's afraid of things
anymore than anyone else.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
How do people react to the ending? Is it good
or bad that he's killed somebody. Is Spielberg saying he's
got his masculinity back? Or is he saying he really
shouldn't have been goaded his self defense?

Speaker 4 (50:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (50:31):
But why can he just turn it back? If he
just turned round and went back home? He never does.
He always goes forward, goes on, goes on, even he
knows he's going into danger.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
But wouldn't the truck just have turned around and followed
in the other direction?

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Who knows? He didn't try it once? Did he?

Speaker 5 (50:44):
No?

Speaker 2 (50:45):
He didn't try that true, And I just think true
self defense to a point. That's it's almost like Spielberg
is saying, great stuff, you're a man, that's what you know.

Speaker 6 (50:52):
That you mentioned that because he left his home at
the beginning of the show, and his wife on the
phone had told him he needs to be back home
because his mother was coming over.

Speaker 5 (51:01):
So it makes me wonder where he was going.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Well, I say that we know there's a nod to
the Westerns in there. So he's won the duel.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Yeah, so that's a good thing, right, Or has he
lost his humanity because he's become like the enemy, has
become like the base that hunted him?

Speaker 4 (51:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (51:18):
No, because I think it is ultimately self defense.

Speaker 5 (51:21):
Really, how is he getting home?

Speaker 6 (51:23):
I wonder he's lost his car in the middle of
the desert.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Did you get a point? Is there any sense that
he's relishing it? I didn't feel that at all.

Speaker 6 (51:34):
Was there anything in that there's a few points, like
there's one where he goes on that side road when
the truck's kind of weaving in and out to prevent
him from passing and treasure to wave him on into
the oncoming car. He gets on that side road, and
then like I think at that moment he sort of like, yeah, I'm.

Speaker 5 (51:48):
Winning, you know.

Speaker 4 (51:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (51:52):
Maybe at the end too, when he's finally free of
the truck driver, he's like relief.

Speaker 5 (51:56):
So I mean, like, yeah, I suppose at.

Speaker 6 (51:57):
That moment he might ye be a little bit of
but one killed that guy I just said, He's like, oh,
I'm free from this terrorizer.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Plus I think he'd gone beyond, like I said, resources
almost I didn't get too much.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
Of the sense that he was actually up for a
fight to the death.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
No, I don't sympathize with the truck driver at all,
but I do with David Mann. I could completely believe myself. Okay,
there are things, other decisions one might have taken, etcetera.
In reality, but just taking the story as it is,
I could see myself in that situation and acting out
of self defense and thinking, yeah, it's all over, and

(52:37):
I'm just totally relieved and jumping in the air like
a child. Yeah, I can see that happening. I wouldn't
have wanted to kill anybody, but in that situation you
defend yourself.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
So presumably you'll go back. He'll eventually find his way
back home somehow, go to that bloke who was, you know,
making past his wife and then go and punch him
in the face, won't you. That's the undwritten sort of Okay, he's.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Well only if you go for the sort of masculinity interpretation,
but I think that's very much a subsidiary thing, if
they're much at all. Really, his name is.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Man yea, as in all one hundred million names to
choose from David, which is that you know, everybody's called David.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Man as in every man, as in mankind. Yeah, not
as in toxic masculinity. That sounds like an interpretation added
from a feminist aspect, which I don't think.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Is there really well, not toxic.

Speaker 5 (53:27):
Anything the trucker represents.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Yeah, yeah, indeed, yes, I especially he's finding his masculinity
whatever that means that the man character is just finding
out how to pay as a man in the world.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Is he finding his masculinity or is he just finding
something heroic about himself which could be played by a woman,
but it isn't you know that.

Speaker 6 (53:47):
I do think the masculinity viewpoint is valid, But at
the same time, it's like, I don't see anything about
this that is specific for him being a man necessarily,
Like a woman could have gone through the same thing
and she did in Rossock Krom with your Parent.

Speaker 4 (54:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (54:00):
Yeah, I think you see it more as a character piece.

Speaker 6 (54:04):
You see him as this very timid guy who doesn't
stand up to this, you know, his boss or whoever
it was, making a pass at his wife.

Speaker 5 (54:11):
You see him, he's hand packed.

Speaker 6 (54:13):
By his wife and he's you know, at the beginning
of the movie, he's very much he passes the truck
and then later the truck passes him again, he's like, okay,
I'll find I'll just let it go.

Speaker 5 (54:22):
But then then the truck slows down and like then
it becomes the game.

Speaker 6 (54:25):
And then you see him as this movie unfolds that
he's like growing incrementally towards taking definitive action against somebody.

Speaker 5 (54:32):
Who's bullying him.

Speaker 6 (54:33):
So, I mean it's as much about bullying and standing
up to your bully as it is anything else. I
would say you know, and that doesn't have to be
masculine in and of itself.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Yes, you can.

Speaker 6 (54:42):
You can see his character arc from the start of
the movie to the end, as he had a full
complete arc of character growing.

Speaker 5 (54:48):
And how he stands up to people.

Speaker 6 (54:50):
So now I see, Yeah, like Mark said at the
end of this movie, if he gets back home, he's
probably gonna go clock the guy in the face.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Maybe maybe he'll maybe stand up to him.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
And so, by the way, yeah, I think if you
probably feels well, I've done this, I can do anything now,
you know.

Speaker 5 (55:04):
Yeah, you'd be like, man, I killed the guy in
the desert man, just yea, you might want to.

Speaker 4 (55:09):
Back up, yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah, I'm actually.

Speaker 6 (55:12):
Really interested in what the aftermath of this movie would
have been, because you've got to get getting another cars
that are going to be insurance.

Speaker 5 (55:19):
How is he going to get out of this? I'm
almost as intrigued about that as I am the rest
of the movie. Yeah, is court trial.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
So that's what the sequel should have been about.

Speaker 4 (55:33):
Investigation? Well why not?

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Yeah, yeah, I wanted to just pursue. This is about
the human versus the machine thing, you know, the fragile
human against the brute power of technology. And I was
just extrapolating from that, and you know, wonder whether there's
anything we could take from this movie with respect to that.

(55:57):
When I was thinking of the machine, obviously that the
truck as the sort of the system with a big s,
you know, the technocratic system that keeps coming has not
necessarily got your good at heart at all. You can't
reason with it, you can't appeal to its better nature.
It's just coming at you. And I was thinking that
there are times when it will seem to pause if

(56:17):
you sort of stop playing its games for a bit.
Obviously it's stopping at the cafe. Things pause for a while,
but it's still working away, gas lighting you. And you know,
it's apparently stopped, but it's still working away, and it's
ready to put its foot back on the accelerator again.
And then I was thinking that at the end of
the film, we've said that David Mann overcomes this by
tricking it. He exploits the aggression of the truck to

(56:41):
its own destruction. I just wonder whether there is a
lesson there. I don't mean this was intended by anybody,
but could one get this from it? I do wonder
sometimes that by not cooperating with the system, which often
poses as reasonable and benevolent, etc. You know, we can
actually sometimes push it to its true colors, you know,

(57:02):
of the state can reveal it's authoritarian nature at times
if we peacefully resisted, if we disagree what it's doing,
we sort of force it to show its authoritarianism. Therefore
to reveal itself. I don't know. It's just something that
chimed with me. Again, I'm not saying that's what the
movie is saying.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
I'm going to say, what sort of thing do you
mean as an example of.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
For example, something unreasonable that the state might require you
to do, and you stand your ground and you don't
question to do it, Yeah, and the state then comes
after you, whereas it previously posed as being completely reasonable
and as tolerating descend. Let's say you dessent, and you
suddenly find that actually it's not quite the free world

(57:42):
and the democracy and all that a lot of people
would think it to be. It reveals itself to be
more authoritarian than one might suppose. And in some ways,
I think that's a good thing for this to be revealed,
you know. And I think we did see that during COVID.
I know that's a whild back now, but we did
see that happening.

Speaker 4 (57:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
I think the non participate angles interesting, isn't it, because
you can't completely non participate unfortunately.

Speaker 6 (58:05):
Yeah, and there's a lot of people who are willingly
participating that makes it much harder to resist them.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
Yeah. Yeah, Sorry to kind of change the subject slightly.
It's just that you reminded me Mark when you talk
about the driver of the truck. I sometimes wonder whether
the driver of the truck is a figment of David
Man's imagination because nobody else sees him. Is it, in
fact the truck that is the real antagonist in this
the real monster, but he just imagines as a truck driver.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
How do you mean what the truck or the driver
or because obviously the school bus see the truck. I mean,
you know, if they see the truck, we don't know
whether they see the driver though, right. I mean I
think we see too much of the driver if I'm
being honest. Yes, early on the camera sweeps around and
you see him for a second or two. That okay,
it's a bloke. It's a shame that you see a
little too much. Do you think it would be good

(58:58):
not to have seen him at all. Yeah, I think
I would go along with your view then if you
didn't see him at all. But I think you sort
of see too much of him.

Speaker 4 (59:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (59:05):
I had thought that you didn't see him altered the
movie the first time I saw it years ago, and
then I watched it. We do see a lot of this,
It is a lot, yeah, yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
I read somewhere that it was you see his arm twice,
and you see his boots, But actually see a lot
more than that, don't you? Yeah, several times.

Speaker 5 (59:21):
Yeah, I saw it way more, way more.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Going back to the Appointment, we don't see the driver
in the appointment of that Lorry? Do we with the
three dogs on? That was better, I think to do that.

Speaker 5 (59:33):
Yeah, I think it was better that.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Yeah. I mean, if you're going to imply that this
Lorry dies at the end like a creature, then have
it as a creature throughout.

Speaker 6 (59:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
But then would you say shot in thirteen days?

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Did you say? Originally?

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Yes, it is extraordinary. I mean, I mean the amount
of shots in that film, and I mean, watching it again,
I think to make a film in thirteen days is incredible.
So I mean to have the odd shot that you
could have possibly gone back and changed or altered. You know,
it's nderstandable I think in that sense.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
Yeah. And also instead of having storyboards, he drew out
a big plan of right highway. Then he wasn't worried
if he shot out of sequence because you know, he'd
sketch that what would happen enough?

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Okay, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
And he hung it up on the walls of his
motel room, didn't he all the way around the walls? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
But you know, Spielberg was hungry, wasn't he? And he
was very economical and yeah, efficient.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
And apparently this was unusual for TV because a lot
of TV is very close shots of people, and here
it is very cinematic in conception with these wide shots,
and that got him noticed.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Do you know when they released it in the cinema
whether they cropped it, because obviously it's four three, it's
a square shape for the TV. Do you know whether
they went the full hole and cropped it for the
cinema release. I don't know anything like that because that
would have possibly spoiled some of the compositions. Yeah, I
don't know that technical nature there, No, I just wondered
because it's obviously shot for TV, and you've got the

(01:00:59):
talking about David Man behind the launderette, you know window
that's perfectly framed for a television square. So yes, you
would have ruined that if.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
You cropped it, they would have got for the widest
possible Maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
I think we may have done it right. Well okay, well,
thanks very much Chaps for discussing this. I think great film.
We call it a suspenseful triumph that showcases Spielberg's early
mastery of visual storytelling. I've watched it a number of
times and I never tire of watching it, and I

(01:01:34):
think you've seen more and more in it each time.
That's certainly true for preparing for this, of course, because
you're reading about it as well. But I mean, even
if you're not, I think you're just watching it again,
you do pick up more and more from it. It's
a very engaging movie, and it's like an eternal movie
in some ways. So anyway, it's everywhere, so I wouldn't
say where're going to get it from because you can
just get it anywhere, can't you. It's so well known.

(01:01:56):
So thanks very much Chaps for discussing this. And it's
a very good discussion.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
Thank you, thanks having thanks, thank you, thank you, yours,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Show notes for this program can be found at the
mind renewde themindreneude dot com podcast. Music by the brilliant
Anthony Radjakov. Attribution non commercial shareer like prop point zero International.
You have been listening to me, Julian Charles and my
guests Anthony Ratuno, Frank Johnson and Mark Campbell, and I
very much looked forward speaking to you again, God willing,
and as time permits, in the not too distant future,