Duel

Duel (1971)

11 corrected entries

(16 votes)

Corrected entry: Notice how the truck has many number plates on the front? Are these trophies from other victims he has claimed?

Correction: No. Back then you needed a separate license plate for each state you wished to operate a truck in.

That's what the driver exploited. He could have trophy license plates in plain view on the front of the truck, and no one would suspect a thing. They'd think it was just another multiple plates big rig.

Corrected entry: It is obvious that the truck is much more powerful than the Plymouth, yet at the level crossing it has a lot of trouble shunting the Plymouth forward, even on sandy ground. So it seems that during this scene, the truck driver was only gently nudging the Plymouth to avoid actually shunting it into the passing train.

Correction: You just said it yourself. The truck probably wasn't trying to kill Dennis weaver in this scene. He may have just been trying to scare him. Since we are not sure how the truck driver thinks, this cannot be considered a mistake.

Corrected entry: Near the end of the movie, when David jams his briefcase to the accelerator and jumps from the car, the truck begins to push the car from behind toward the cliff edge. The next time we see the truck pushing it, the car is being pushed sidewards.

Correction: With no one in the car to steer, it's possible for the car to veer sideways while being pushed from behind by the truck.

Corrected entry: Watch the scene where the truck is gradually pushing the car into a passing train. Before the train arrives, a red gate comes down to stop the traffic. But when the car speeds off after the train has passed, the gate has completely disappeared, the car does not smash through it, and it does not raise back up, it just disappears.

Correction: Thats not true, all is well with the gates.

Corrected entry: In the scene where the red car drives in neutral, descending the hill, we can see that the car increases in speed. At one point we can see the speedometer and the driver at the same time. Before that scene, the car had a speed around 50 miles per hour. But in the scene, the speed is only 30 miles per hour. Then we see the speed again and it is back increasing to 60 miles an hour. And the car was descending the hill all the time.

Correction: Possibly Dave braked at that time to keep his speed in check from going too fast?

Corrected entry: During the finale, the red car hits the front of the truck head on and bursts into flames, but as we see the next shot of the car, it is now facing sideways as the truck pushes it over the cliff.

Will

Correction: With no one to steer the car, it's more than likely going to veer or be pushed sideways during the collision. It's not unusual to turn sideways in a collision.

Corrected entry: Just before David Mann gets run off the road - into the fence by the diner, the yellow lines on the road, as he tries to escape the truck driver, are continuously changing.

Correction: As they would to indicate passing and no passing zones, turning lanes, etc.

Corrected entry: At the cafe when David Mann begins accusing the man at the table, the man reacts by punching David in the guts and pushing him onto the pool table. He then takes another swing at him, but punches the light above the pool table instead of David. The chef runs over and tells the man that he has already hit him twice, when he had really only hit him the one time.

Correction: I'm sure the chef was just worried, and wanted to get the truck driver out of there. He didn't care how many times he hit David. Plus, he might have seen the fight on an angle that looks like David got hit twice.

Corrected entry: When the truck is turning round to give the school bus a push, you can see the children and the bus driver outside of the bus, but seconds later, the children and the driver are on board the bus when it is being pushed by the truck.

Will

Correction: As the truck is turning around, the children are lined up and the driver is motioning for them to get back on the bus. It's just a little hard to see since the dust clouds.

Toolio

Corrected entry: The car that David Mann is driving is supposedly a brand new car and, while anything is possible, it is HIGHLY unlikely that a radiator hose would burst so soon on a new car, no matter how hard it's driven.

Correction: Even as a highly unlikely occurrence, the fact is that it does fall within the realm of possibility, remote as it would seem and have a plausible reason like a manufacturing flaw in the radiator hose, that would eventually be recalled.

Corrected entry: When David gets run off the road, he smashes into the fence. Then he gets out of his car and closes the car door behind him. After spending a while in the cafe, he returns to his car and now the door is open. (00:25:30 - 00:41:00)

Correction: During the 15 minutes or so that Mann is in the diner, a passer-by could have stopped to see if the driver of the car was injured, and finding no one in the car, continued on their way. Patroling cop, thief, nosey neighbor- the possibilities are numerous in that 15 minutes.

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: On the truck cab's rear window, there is some sort of air conditioning unit installed. In some shots, such as the gas station scene where David Mann is on the telephone, or the railroad crossing scene, the air conditioning unit has a support structure to hold it in place. In the rest of the film however, there is not any support structure to be seen.

More mistakes in Duel

David Mann: That truck driver's crazy, he's been trying to kill me, I mean it.
Bus Driver: Well, mister, if I was to vote on who's crazy around here, it'd be you.

More quotes from Duel

Trivia: At the end of the film when the truck goes off the cliff, we hear an odd groaning sound. This is a dinosaur growl from an old movie Spielberg likes. Interestingly, this same sound is also used at the end of Jaws as the shark sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Spielberg did this to show that Jaws and Duel would always be closely connected.

More trivia for Duel

Answer: It's never explained why but, judging from the numerous license plates from other vehicles attached to his truck, the truck driver is a serial killer and was just targeting people at random and decided to make David his next target.

Trucks used to have to be registered in multiple states if they were going to operate in them. It was very common to see semi trucks with a half dozen or so license plates on them, each from a different state.

Answer: According to director Steven Spielberg, the trucker was a serial killer, and each of the license plates were trophies from previous victims.

Answer: David pulled ahead of the truck not once but twice. He got to the gas station first, and got served before the trucker. For any normal person this would not be cause to try to murder someone, however the truck driver is an unhinged psychopath who doesn't need much reason to go into an obsessive rage. Add to that the fact that David is driving a much smaller car, and the fact that they're out in the middle of nowhere with nary a cop around, and the truck driver probably saw David as easy prey.

Answer: "It was very common to see semi trucks with a half dozen or so license plates on them, each from a different state." And that's how the psycho trucker got away with it. He could have those 'trophy' plates on the front of the truck in plain sight, and to anyone who saw it, the truck would look like just another big rig with multiple license plates. Nothing out of the ordinary or suspicious about it.

More questions & answers from Duel

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