Question: Why does the fuel tanker truck not explode or burst into flames after it crashes down the mountainside?
raywest
11th Jan 2025
Duel (1971)
10th Jun 2023
Duel (1971)
Question: I'm pretty sure that some of the "Duel" tanker footage was used in a different film, but I can't find any info on it. What other movies used it?
Answer: Some "Duel" footage was used for the TV series "The Incredible Hulk" in an episode titled "Never Give a Trucker an Even Break." Both the TV movie and the series were produced by Universal Studios.
27th Feb 2021
Duel (1971)
Question: Why didn't David simply turn around and go back home? The truck never turned around to get him, it just waited further ahead up the road. David even stated he'd never make his meeting now due to delays. Huge plot hole.
Answer: As the title indicated this became a "duel." Once challenged, David got pulled into a fight mentality with the crazed truck driver to where his "road rage" pushed aside all logic and sense of safety. David became obsessed with defeating the "Goliath" opponent. Also, if he turned around and went home, that would have ended the movie.
Answer: Not only that but, the truck driver was a psycho who wanted to kill David, so he would have likely turned around and kept following him.
Maybe-but if David had not taken his roughly one hour nap and turned around right then he would have had a huge head start on the truck, and it is doubtful the truck would have caught up with him. Still, a great movie.
28th May 2017
Duel (1971)
Question: I know it's never answered in the film but is it explained in the book just why the truck driver takes such a dislike to David Mann - he behaves this way after just a couple of overtakes?
Chosen answer: The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the short story. He based it on a similar experience he had with a trucker. That question is never answered, and not knowing adds to the mystery and intrigue. No mentally stable person would target someone just because they overtook their vehicle on the road. It appears that Mann crossed paths with a psychopath. Steven Spielberg has commented that the multiple out-of-state license plates attached to the truck's front bumper may be "trophies" that indicate that the trucker is a serial killer who has run down other drivers. This could be a deadly game to the truck driver.
I just wonder why the driver's door on the big rig was open while it took a dive over the mountain.
Perhaps a hint that the truck driver escaped. You notice that the truck doesn't explode on impact, although the studio insisted it must; Spielberg fought the studio over the inclusion of a cliched fiery finale, as he wanted the crash to convey an ambiguous ending, suggesting that the driver might not have died. Spielberg even explained that the red liquid seen in the truck cab was not blood, but was some sort of automotive fluid. This all lent to the mystery of what actually happened to the driver, whose body we never see.
The stuntman driving the truck had to jump out of the truck right before it went over the edge, and due to equipment issues barely made it out, without having time to shut the door.
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Answer: Vehicles do not typically explode in collisions, even a fuel tanker, which may have been empty. Car and truck impact explosions are mostly an overused movie trope. The Mythbusters covered this in a movie myths episode. Spielberg avoided a clichéd fiery ending by instead showing the truck's destruction with close-up interior shots and focusing on Mann's quiet reflection in the aftermath. Also, this was a low-budget, made-for-TV movie. Explosive special effects are expensive, dangerous, and do not always go as planned, requiring multiple takes.
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