Harry P.

Waldenbooks. Gone. Crown Books. Gone. B. Dalton Booksellers. Gone. Kroch's & Brentano's. Gone. Border's Books. Gone. 2014: B&N closes its original NYC flagship store. From the Wall Street Journal: Barnes & Noble expects to close as many as a third of its retail stores over the next decade, the bookseller's top store executive said, offering the most detailed picture yet of the company's plans for the outlets Mr. Klipper said his forecast assumes that the company will close about 20 stores a year over the period. So you tell me... are bookstores growing? Or dying?

Magazines... well, print magazines at least... are all facing problems. Fewer people buy print magazines these days, more are turning to digital e-mags. There is growing pressure on print mags to stay in business when the alternative (no paper costs, no printing costs, no shipping/mailing costs) is so much cheaper to produce. It's no wonder that a lot of niche magazines are disappearing as printed periodicals. Same problem that newspapers face... trying to sell a product based on old (obsolete?) tech, when the alternative is growing by leaps and bounds. It's a trend that isn't going away anytime soon.

Sorry, snake... had to hide the video you posted. Goes against the no swearing rule.

Amen.

I'm not familiar with the real car, but that is one sweet model!

Come on, man... you can do better than that! Bill's 2016 resolution: FINISH SOMETHING!

That 'cuda is awesome...

Wow! What a wide variety of subject matter! All are super cool, but like Bruce, I think the plane dio is my favorite. Nice work, man!

Lowrider? Don't think so.

Aw shucks, Bernard... I'm blushing! But thank you for the kind words. Happy new year to you and yours.. and to all you guys!

Actually there were four trucks. The '55 that appeared in the original TV movie and the '64 351 that was used in filming the additional scenes for the theatrical release were the only two that actually appear in the movie. A "back up" '60 was on hand while filming the original movie but it was never used. And a second truck was bought along with the "64 to film the added scenes, but it also never appeared in the movie. The truck that's still around and known as the "Duel truck" is that '60 that was the backup during the filming of the original movie but was never used...so technically it isn't really the "Duel truck." The "real" Duel truck was really crashed in the movie, and the '64 that was used in the added scenes was also destroyed, but during some other production afterwards. Neither truck that actually appeared in the movie exists today.

More interesting trivia I found... The original TV movie was shot in November 1971, and there were two Valiants used, a 1970 with a 318 and a '71 with a 225 slant six. Both cars were used interchangeably. But several months after it's TV debut, when they tacked on the added scenes to bulk up the run time of the movie for it's theatrical release, they used a new '72 Valiant. There are several shots throughout the extended version of the movie where the Valiant's dash is shown–but the mileage on the odometer changes from one shot to another (by about 1,000 miles)! In some shots the car has the column-mounted interlock-style ignition switch while in the scenes shot during the original filming, the older Valiant had the dash-mounted ignition switch (sometimes with no key in it!). The original 74-minute TV movie used a 1955 Peterbilt 281 with a tag axle cab and tanker trailer. The same truck was used in all of the movie's scenes and was destroyed in the film's climactic crash ending. A 2nd 281, a 1960 with tag axle, had been prepared as a "just in case" backup but was never used at all in the movie. It has been in and out of its Duel "make-up" since; this is the "surviving" Duel truck. When the film was expanded to 90 minutes for theatrical release, two additional 281/351 rigs were purchased, the first was a 1964 351, virtually identical to the original but for its air intake. Used to film the additional scenes, it was later destroyed in another production. The original truck in the movie had to be modified so it could hit speeds up to 90mph.

That's a very odd video. The cars in the streets are a strange mix of old cars from the '60s-70s and what look to be cars from today.

But remember, the movie was made in 1971, so the truck was only about 15 years old. It would be like finding a 2000 Pete today. Not that hard.

More interesting trivia: • The movie was shot in only two weeks (it was shot that quickly because made-for-TV movies had very limited budgets and tight shooting schedules). Spielberg actually came in under budget and before the deadline... so the TV bigwigs had to be happy about that. • The truck (1955 Peterbilt) was specifically picked by Spielberg after "auditioning" several trucks because he thought it had a more menacing "face" than the more typical cabovers that were in popular use then. And the truck that goes over the cliff at the end is a real 1955 Peterbilt. The crash had to be done in one take, as there was no money in the budget for any additional trucks. The truck they crashed was the only truck they had. And it really did crash down the side of the cliff... no computer magic special effects back then (or the money for it, had they existed!). The stunt driver simply jumped out of the cab at the last second and the truck really crashed down the side of the cliff. • Even without a big fiery ending, the movie did so well on TV that it was decided to release the film theatrically in Europe, and in a few select cities in the US. But because it was a made-for-TV movie, it was too short (74 minutes) to be seen as a "legitimate" theatrical film, so about 20 minutes of extra scenes were filmed and rather clumsily inserted into the existing movie to bulk up the run time for theaters. Those extra scenes are probably the movie's weakest links, as they were literally never meant to be there, and were in fact tacked on after the original movie had been created. They include the scene where Dennis Weaver is in the gas station talking to his wife on the phone, the scene with the broken-down school bus full of bratty kids, and the scene where the truck tries to push the Valiant into the train. That "railroad" scene was particularly a problem because in the original film, the only direct contact the truck and the Valiant were ever supposed to have was at the very end (as Spielberg had intended the movie to be). Some felt that the truck trying to push the Valiant into the train was an awkward scene that weakened the climax of the movie. Since the additional scenes were added after the original movie had been finished, and since they really crashed their one and only truck in the filming of the ending, I guess they somehow found another '55 Pete to use in those scenes that were later spliced into the movie.

Boy, you can find anything online! I did a google search for "at the end of Duel why doesn't the truck explode?" I actually found out the answer! Even though the truck's tanker trailer was clearly labeled "FLAMMABLE," and that was shown over and over... maybe to build up the viewer's anticipation of a fiery end to the truck... in the end the truck tumbles down the side of the cliff yet doesn't explode. It turns out Steven Spielberg wanted a more "artsy" ending instead of the expected huge explosion/fireball. And it turns out that when the network execs (remember, "Duel" was originally shot as a made-for-TV movie, not a theatrical release) saw the finished product, they were furious because they had expected a big fiery ending, and felt that Spielberg hadn't delivered what they had wanted. In fact, they were so upset that they demanded the ending be refilmed as a fiery crash whether Spielberg agreed or not. But the producer refused to change Spielberg's ending, and the movie ultimately ran on TV as Spielberg intended it.

I guess that does make sense...

What in the wide world of sports is going on here???

Hitler ice cream cones???!!!!

ok... gotta be honest with you... the color scheme does nothing for me. Maybe if the lime green portion had been ivory...but otherwise, another typically clean, sharp model from you. Very nice.

Interestingly enough, the movie was made specifically as a TV "movie of the week" and clocked in at a mere 74 minutes. Only after the fact was it decided to release the movie in theaters (mainly in Europe, but also in "selected" US theaters)... so to make it a "real" movie they had to bulk up the run time. That's when several scenes were added, including the broken-down school bus scene and the "pushing the Valiant into the train" scene. But I agree with Bill... whether plausible or not, how did they miss an opportunity for a great big explosion as the grand finale? I mean, seriously... a truck filled with "flammable" liquid tumbles down a rocky cliff and doesn't explode???

Why in the world did you post this in the "How to Use this Board" section???

Yeah, I guess so!

Clay... cool pix! I had read that the cafe was now a French restaurant.

Well, in reality Adolf Hitler actually did engage Ferdinand Porsche to design the "people's car," later to become known as the Volkswagen. So maybe a Porsche with a swastika on the door isn't so far fetched after all?