Duel (1971): Bringing a Pontiac to a fuel-tanker fight
Duel, 1971, directed by Steven Spielberg, Universal Studios 4K blu-ray (2023), 3.5 stars. For a guy so well-known for making big, stupendous, seismic spectacles, Steven Spielberg sure knew how to deliver a small, straightforward, simple but thrilling horror film. Duel, technically, was Spielberg's feature-film debut. It started out as a quickly made, micro-budget TV movie that produced some pretty good numbers for ABC in viewership ratings. It did so well that Universal Studios had Spielberg shoot a few more scenes to pad out its 73-minute runtime for an international theatrical release. And that, dear readers, was how Steven Spielberg's movie career started. I just watched the theatrical release, re-edited and remastered with the added scenes into widescreen aspect ratio. I really didn't expect much from this movie. I thought it would be a glorified dumbed-down TV movie with mini-cliffhanger commercial-break fadeouts every 12 or 15 minutes. Man, was I wrong. Duel is a bang...