Duel

Duel (1971)

11 corrected entries

(16 votes)

Corrected entry: Notice how the truck has many number plates on the front? Are these trophies from other victims he has claimed?

Correction: No. Back then you needed a separate license plate for each state you wished to operate a truck in.

That's what the driver exploited. He could have trophy license plates in plain view on the front of the truck, and no one would suspect a thing. They'd think it was just another multiple plates big rig.

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: 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.

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: 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.

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: Thats not true, all is well with the gates.

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: Possibly Dave braked at that time to keep his speed in check from going too fast?

Corrected entry: 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.

Will

Correction: 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.

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: As they would to indicate passing and no passing zones, turning lanes, etc.

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: 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.

Corrected entry: 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.

Will

Correction: 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.

Toolio

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: 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.

Corrected entry: 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. (00:25:30 - 00:41:00)

Correction: 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.

johnrosa

Duel mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When David's car gets stuck on the bus bumper, the next shot is of the bus' black bumper and the side of the car. At the top of the black bumper there are two people seen in the reflection. The person on the left turns and takes a step to the right.

More mistakes in Duel

David Mann: That truck driver's crazy, he's been trying to kill me, I mean it.
Bus Driver: Well, mister, if I was to vote on who's crazy around here, it'd be you.

More quotes from Duel

Trivia: Steven Spielberg "interviewed" over 100 trucks before finding the forboding, evil looking one for the movie.

The_Iceman

More trivia for Duel

Question: When the character was at the cafe and the truck was there, but he didn't know who the driver was, why didn't he just go and wait by the truck, smash the windshield, fill the gas tank with sugar or water, slash the tyres?

Answer: At that point in the film, the protagonist David Mann is ready to confront the truck driver. When he sees the old Peterbilt truck outside, David mistakenly assumes the truck driver has already entered the diner, so he confronts a likely suspect that he sees at the counter (but he has misidentified the man). The misidentified man takes offense and punches David out. By the time he recovers his senses, David sees the old Peterbilt truck leaving the parking lot. Which means the actual homicidal truck driver never entered the diner in the first place and was waiting outside the whole time. If David had first gone outside to the Peterbilt, there was a good chance the waiting homicidal truck driver would have killed him right there, and the story would have abruptly ended. So, David's misidentification of the truck driver allowed the film to move ahead into its next act.

Charles Austin Miller

Yes, I get why the filmmakers did that, but I still think it is a plot hole. If the Dennis Weaver character was afraid of getting killed by the truck driver, I doubt he would have confronted him in the cafe.

More questions & answers from Duel

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