Director Steven Spielberg clashed with Duel star Dennis Weaver over the film
Where the two men disagreed, and where they came to an understanding.
We’ve all felt a bit of road rage, but Steven Spielberg’s Duel takes that anger to a whole new level.
The 1971 film was originally based on a short story by Richard Matheson, also published in 1971. Matheson later developed the screenplay, and the project was later produced as a television film. Largely regarded as Spielberg’s first major film, Duel kick-started the young director’s career.
Starring Gunsmoke’s Dennis Weaver as mild-mannered businessman David Mann thrust into a life-or-death situation, Duel creates an anxiety-inducing film with little dialogue. It also serves as a metaphor for American society at the time.
“The hero of Duel is typical of that lower-middle-class American who’s insulated by suburban modernization,” Spielberg stated, according to The Steven Spielberg Story by Tony Crawley.
Conversely, Spielberg admitted that the film’s star felt he deserved to be in the driver’s seat, so to speak.
“Dennis wanted to be more aggressive,” said Spielberg.
“He wanted to encounter the truck three or four times, himself, with no help from me or Richard Matheson. I felt very strongly that he should be a mild-mannered businessman of the hen-pecked variety, needing a major change in his life. His life needed changing, as they say in the Old West...He didn’t want to be the guy the way he was written,” said Spielberg of Weaver.
Luckily, Weaver was able to understand Spielberg’s reasoning and portrayed the character in the placid manner he was written.
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