Other mistake: While in Chuck's Cafe, a creepy shadow of a woman enters the camera view and it seems that she is playing the jukebox. No music ever plays in the place. (00:32:00)
Duel (1971)
1 other mistake
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Dennis Weaver, Eddie Firestone, Jacqueline Scott, Lou Frizzell
Visible crew/equipment: When Dennis Weaver is in the cafe a shadow of a cameraman is cast across the table he is sitting at. The shot then changes to a wider angle to reveal that there isn't anyone near him who could have cast that shadow.
David Mann: I'd like to report a truck driver who's been endangering my life.
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.
Question: When the character was at the cafe and the truck was there, but he didn't know who the driver was, why didn't he just go and wait by the truck, smash the windshield, fill the gas tank with sugar or water, slash the tyres?
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Answer: At that point in the film, the protagonist David Mann is ready to confront the truck driver. When he sees the old Peterbilt truck outside, David mistakenly assumes the truck driver has already entered the diner, so he confronts a likely suspect that he sees at the counter (but he has misidentified the man). The misidentified man takes offense and punches David out. By the time he recovers his senses, David sees the old Peterbilt truck leaving the parking lot. Which means the actual homicidal truck driver never entered the diner in the first place and was waiting outside the whole time. If David had first gone outside to the Peterbilt, there was a good chance the waiting homicidal truck driver would have killed him right there, and the story would have abruptly ended. So, David's misidentification of the truck driver allowed the film to move ahead into its next act.
Charles Austin Miller
Yes, I get why the filmmakers did that, but I still think it is a plot hole. If the Dennis Weaver character was afraid of getting killed by the truck driver, I doubt he would have confronted him in the cafe.