Duel (1971): Spielberg’s Action Thriller, Made for TV Movie, Starring Dennis Weaver

The first expression of Spielberg’s filmic talent, made when he was 25, Duel followed his direction of some TV melodramas, one of which starring Joan Crawford.

Spielberg essentially launched his career by directing this ABC Movie of the Week, building it around a premise that could have been disposable made-for-TV 1970s-horror-flicks.

A salesman (Dennis Weaver in mustache and wire-framed aviator specs), going on a solo business trip, drives his red Plymouth Valiant down a two-lane highway through the Mojave Desert, where he’s menaced by a dilapidated tanker truck whose driver is never seen.

There is almost no dialogue, but Spielberg staged the film as a metal-machine showdown. His framing and editing are so ingenious that the images flow smoothly.

The truck remains an inscrutable force–the first of Spielberg’s great monsters, a precursor to the shark in “Jaws.”