Duel

[Harry P.]

I watched the movie "Duel" the other day on youtube. First time I had seen it in many years. All in all very entertaining, pretty much as I remembered it... I really love the locations they filmed at... those desert roads were really photogenic.

But I couldn't help but notice several really glaring mistakes. F'rinstance, at one point Dennis Weaver's Valiant blows a radiator hose... there are several closeups of the dash temp gauge all the way over on the "hot" side, and the little Valiant is sputtering slowly to a crawl as the evil Peterbilt bears down on it. But then the road begins a long, steady downhill stretch, and the Valiant gradually picks up speed as Dennis Weaver's character puts it into "neutral" and just lets gravity take over. Ok, makes sense... but then later in the movie, the Valiant has miraculously repaired itself as the chase continues!

Then there's the scene where the Valiant is stopped at a RR crossing as a long freight train rumbles past. The evil Peterbilt comes up behind the Valiant and begins to push the car into the train. Dennis Weaver puts the car in reverse and guns it, trying to push back against the much larger and more powerful Peterbilt. Uh, not gonna work. Why not just turn the wheel so that as the Peterbilt pushes you, the car just makes a left turn parallel to the tracks instead of heading into the train? Duh!

And finally, maybe the biggest goof of all. The evil Peterbilt, which was pulling a tanker clearly labeled "Flammable," goes over the cliff at the end of the movie. Yet there is no explosion? Shouldn't a truck carrying a trailer full of flammable liquid that just tumbled over a cliff catch fire and explode?

I know I'm probably nit-picking, but if I saw those obvious mistakes (and there were actually more), you'd thing Spielberg or at least someone would have spotted the mistakes and re-shot the scenes.

[Petetrucker07]

Yep, you are correct about those biggie mistakes. A self repairing radiator hose, I think those would sell like hot cakes.

If your interested, here are a couple pics I took while driving down Sierra Highway, where the movie was shot. The cafe as it stands today as a french restaurant and the tunnel where the broke down school bus scene was shot at.

[cobraman]

Mistakes aside I like that movie and watch it most every time I notice it is being aired.

[Tom Geiger]

Harry just accept the fact that Valiants are magical!   

[Harry P.]

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

[Harry P.]

Harry just accept the fact that Valiants are magical!   

Yeah, I guess so!

[Belugawrx]

Didn't mythbusters do the non exploding gas tank myth thing,..some time ago....still searching.....

[Ace-Garageguy]

I just gotta do the pedantic thing, so here goes...

To get an explosion, you generally need a liquid fuel to be atomized (and even common flammable gasses have to have an adequate supply of oxygen to go boom), and you need an ignition source.

If the tank didn't rupture and spray little droplets of liquid fuel into the air at the same time there was a nice spark from metal grinding on itself or on rocks, nothing much would happen.

There are films of ruptured tanker trucks pouring liquid everywhere, but the atomization and ignition sources just didn't happen at the same time.

You can drop a match in an open container of gasoline, and much of the time it will just fizz as it goes out.

You can spray gasoline on a very hot exhaust manifold and again, much of the time, nothing happens.

Surprising though that Hollywood would miss an opportunity to blow something up.  

Interesting about the radiator hose too. You'd think at least they coulda shown the guy wrapping it up with electrical or duct tape, anyway.

Maybe that segment ended up on the editing room floor, cut for being non-essential to plot...or just too long to cram all the commercials in during the TV-version. 

 

Edited January 2, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

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???

[JollySipper]

The one scene where the Valiant is leaving the cafe, the truck driver waves him ahead. It would have been more suspenseful and mysterious if you never knew if someone was driving the truck..... Kind of have the "possessed" vehicle, Christine thing going on......... 

[peter31a]

I must admit I was rather surprised when there wasn't a big fireball explosion when that truck went over the cliff. It seems every t.v. show and movie had giant explosions even for small accidents you would then think a crash with a tanker with flammable on the sides would have resulted in a spectacular kaboom.

[Tom Geiger]

[mikemodeler]

The answer is simple Harry- the same people who are responsible for the correctness in the movies also work in QC at the model companies, thus the search for the perfect kit continues! LOL !

I drive my wife nuts when watching movies and I point out the inconsistencies and errors, but it goes to my personality.

 

 

[Harry P.]

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.

[Harry P.]

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.

[Ace-Garageguy]

... I guess they somehow found another '55 Pete to use in those scenes that were later spliced into the movie.

You wouldn't think there would be a whole lotta those around...

Edited January 2, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

You wouldn't think there would be a whole lotta those around...

https://youtu.be/ZLy94PxIq6s

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.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Good point. 

[Harry P.]

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.

[Harry P.]

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.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Funny how lotsa things that come up on this forum will pique my interest and send me off down another internet rabbit hole. I've always liked the looks of those old "needlenose" Petes, even bought a kit to base one on someday...just found these nice little videos about building a 1/25 model of the Duel truck. Some good weathering tips in here, too.

Speaking of glaring errors...the guy who does the video uses "grinded" for the past-tense of "grind" (it's "ground", by the way...I ground things off...) and it really grinds on my nerves to hear it...

Edited January 2, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[Petetrucker07]

There were 3 trucks, all 3 were different someways, even different years but same make and model. If watch it again, the trucks have different things on them. Top A/C, back window A/C is one. Plus other things.

[Harry P.]

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.

[SfanGoch]

I was a concierge at Trump Tower (1985-92) during the time Spielberg owned an apartment there. One day. I brought up "Duel". I asked him the same question about the tanker. His response: "You watch too many movies." So, I replied, "If I didn't, you wouldn't be living here." "Joe, you might be right; but, if you didn't, you would have saved enough money to be able to instead."  BTW, he was a nice guy but a lousy tipper. He used to give us fruit baskets for Christmas.

[Roadrunner]

Speaking of glaring errors...the guy who does the video uses "grinded" for the past-tense of "grind" (it's "ground", by the way...I ground things off...) and it really grinds on my nerves to hear it...

Your reasons for disliking the term, are well grounded.