In no other Spielberg film is the Hitchcock influence more obvious - it's there in Duel's high concept, in the almost silent approach to cinema, in the camera angles and in the intelligent manipulation of the audience. Before the 'Berg became a fan of self-seriousness and before he forgot how to end a film, Duel showed the director in a more playful light, eschewing much in the way of dialogue and character progression and favouring instead a mano-a-mano vehicular chase. It's one of Spielberg's most purely entertaining movies. Duel may have originally been made for television, but it's a masterful tale, of an average man selected by the universe as the victim of a bored, irate trucker. Instead of a giant comedy shark, Spielberg puts poor Dennis Weaver up against a gigantic steel truck, a smoke-spewing menace that'll stop at nothing to get Weaver's electronics salesman back for disrespecting him on the road. And if that mix of existentialism and wrong-man thrills doesn't sound like classic Hitchcock, then God knows what does - this is blockbuster filmmaking (you won't question the relatively small budget) with some of the most intense chase scenes this side of ol' Hitch. And it wasn't even made for the big screen.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
