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When Mann's bumper gets caught under the school bus and he's trying to free it, a large lighting panel is reflected in his car door every time he opens it. See more...

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This film garnered so much critical praise that it was theatrically released in quite a few countries, though it was originally a made-for-TV-movie for NBC in 1972. See more...

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Duel (1971) - 11 corrections

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Genres: Action, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Watch the scene where the truck is gradually pushing the car into a passing train. Before the train arrives, a red gate comes down to stop the traffic. But when the car speeds off after the train has passed, the gate has completely disappeared, the car does not smash through it, and it does not raise back up, it just disappears. [Thats not true, all is well with the gates.]
Edit
In the scene where the red car drives in neutral, descending the hill, we can see that the car increases in speed. At one point we can see the speedometer  and the driver at the same time. Before that scene, the car had a speed around 50 miles per hour. But in the scene, the speed is only 30 miles per hour. Then we see the speed again and it is back increasing to 60 miles an hour. And the car was  descending the hill all the time. [Possibly Dave braked at that time to keep his speed in check from going too fast?]
Edit
When Dennis Weaver is in the cafe a shadow of a person 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. [That was actually the camera man moving up to the table so he moved out of the way when that wide shot came.]
Edit
It is obvious that the truck is much more powerful than the Plymouth, yet at the level crossing it has a lot of trouble shunting the Plymouth forward, even on sandy ground. So it seems that during this scene, the truck driver was only gently nudging the Plymouth to avoid actually shunting it into the passing train. [You just said it yourself. The truck probably wasn't trying to kill Dennis weaver in this scene. He may have just been trying to scare him. Since we are not sure how the truck driver thinks, this cannot be considered a mistake.]
Edit
During the finale, the red car hits the front of the truck head on and bursts into flames, but as we see the next shot of the car, it is now facing sideways as the truck pushes it over the cliff. [With no one to steer the car, it's more than likely going to veer or be pushed sideways during the collision. It's not unusual to turn sideways in a collision.]
Edit
Near the end of the movie, when David jams his briefcase to the accelerator and jumps from the car, the truck begins to push the car from behind toward the cliff edge. The next time we see the truck pushing it, the car is being pushed sidewards. [With no one in the car to steer, it's possible for the car to veer sideways while being pushed from behind by the truck.]
Edit
Just before David Mann gets run off the road - into the fence by the diner, the yellow lines on the road, as he tries to escape the truck driver, are continuously changing. [As they would to indicate passing and no passing zones, turning lanes, etc.]
Edit
When David gets run off the road, he smashes into the fence. Then he gets out of his car and closes the car door behind him. After spending a while in the cafe, he returns to his car and now the door is open. [During the 15 minutes or so that Mann is in the diner, a passer-by could have stopped to see if the driver of the car was injured, and finding no one in the car, continued on their way. Patroling cop, thief, nosey neighbor- the possibilities are numerous in that 15 minutes.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
At the cafe when David Mann begins accusing the man at the table, the man reacts by punching David in the guts and pushing him onto the pool table. He then takes another swing at him, but punches the light above the pool table instead of David. The chef runs over and tells the man that he has already hit him twice, when he had really only hit him the one time. [I'm sure the chef was just worried, and wanted to get the truck driver out of there. He didn't care how many times he hit David. Plus, he might have seen the fight on an angle that looks like David got hit twice.]
Edit
The car that David Mann is driving is supposedly a brand new car and, while anything is possible, it is HIGHLY unlikely that a radiator hose would burst so soon on a new car, no matter how hard it's driven. [Even as a highly unlikely occurrence, the fact is that it does fall within the realm of possibility, remote as it would seem and have a plausible reason like a manufacturing flaw in the radiator hose, that would eventually be recalled.]
Edit
When the truck is turning round to give the school bus a push, you can see the children and the bus driver outside of the bus, but seconds later, the children and the driver are on board the bus when it is being pushed by the truck. [As the truck is turning around, the children are lined up and the driver is motioning for them to get back on the bus. It's just a little hard to see since the dust clouds.]
Edit Corrected by Toolio