Duel (50th Anniversary Edition) [DVD] [1971]

Before spinning cinematic gold from sharks, dinosaurs and homesick aliens, a young Steven Spielberg directed this high-velocity thriller about an innocent motorist terrorised by an evil truck. Spielberg’s first full-length movie, Duel, helped jumpstart the director’s big-screen career, with a gripping, action=packed story hailed by critics as a film that '...belongs on the classics shelf reserved for top suspensers' (Daily Variety). Dennis Weaver stars as the travelling salesman waging a desperate battle for survival after he is mysteriously singled out for destruction. Praised for its deft use of relentlessly mounting psychological tension, Duel features one of the most uniquely terrifying “characters” in movie history: a massive, roaring 40-ton truck with more sheer menace than most flesh-and-blood villains. But Steven Spielberg was, literally, just getting started. A few years later, the action of Spielberg’s blockbuster hit Jaws would echo Duel’s tale of a lone hero in a heart-stopping fight to the finish against a monstrous, inhuman foe.