Last November marked a month since the premiere, on television, of one of the most brilliant debuts in film history, that of Steven Spielberg (‘Jaws’, ‘Encounters in the Third Kind’, the Indiana tetralogy Jones, ‘Schindler’s List’, ‘ET the Alien’, ‘Saving Private Ryan’, etc.). We are talking about ‘El diablo sobre ruedas’ (‘Duel’ in its original version), a low-budget telefilm that, due to its great success, was released in a film version in Europe in 1972.
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An ‘ordinary man’ becomes, without knowing it and above all without understanding it’, the prey, the ‘Roadrunner’ of a ‘Coyote’, a huge 20-ton trailer that runs faster than his modest car, and who chases him for miles and miles through the lonely roads of deep America, trying to end his life in all kinds of situations.
The cover and the short story ‘Duel’, by Richard Matheson, from the April 1971 issue of the famous adult magazine ‘Playboy’.
1. The origin: a tale from ‘Playboy’
In mid-1971, Steven Spielberg was a promising young director under contract to Universal to make TV movies. One day, his secretary recommended that he read a short story, ‘Duel’, which Richard Matheson had published in the April issue of ‘Playboy’ (a magazine known for its high-voltage female adult material, but where they have also written a large number of the best American firms of the 20th century). The story recounted the murderous pursuit of a heavy truck after a poor man’s car on back roads in North America. Spielberg loved the story, and began to pull the strings to direct a television version.
Richard Matheson, author of ‘Duel’, one of the great geniuses of horror, fantasy and science fiction literature of the 20th century.
And who was this Richard Matheson? Semi-unknown in Spain at the time, Matheson (Allendale, New Jersey, 1926-Calabasas, California, 2013) was a fully established author in North America in those 70s. A prolific author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction stories and short stories, in At that time, he had already triumphed with works such as ‘The Shrinking Man’ (1956), successfully made into a film a year later as ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’, but above all with ‘I Am Legend’ (1954), a dystopia in which that all men and women on Earth become vampires… except one, a novel that was made into a movie in 2007. Stephen King, the ‘king of horror literature’, considers Richard Matheson one of his greatest teachers.
Original movie poster, and one of the hundreds of versions that have been made of a film considered cult.
2. A classic shot… in 14 days
The project, no matter how good it looked, was still a ‘TV movie’, and for this reason it had a limited budget (400,000 dollars) and above all a shooting schedule that should not exceed 12 days, so a movie with so much action became a very complicated job to do.
Two moments from the filming of ‘El diablo sobre ruedas’; in the one on the right, Spielberg directs the last scene, in the middle of a ravine, from a hanging platform. One of the cartoons from the ‘storyboard’ of ‘Duel’, specifically the one with the scene at the serpentine gas station.
And Spielberg did not achieve it in 12 days… but he did in 14. To do this, he designed a detailed plan for the entire shooting process, putting a large map of the area in his office, and from there based on a complete ‘ storyboard’ that showed one by one all the scenes of the film. The young director knew that the project he had in hand could finally take him out of the tedious world of television and catapult him towards his great dream: the big screen.
Which happened shortly after the premiere of the TV movie on November 13, 1971 on ABC. Although the share of the screen was not stratospheric, the product, and especially its young director, began to be on everyone’s lips, which led Universal to decide to release the film in theaters on the international circuit (outside the United States). Joined). But for this, new scenes had to be shot, since the original duration of ‘Duel’ was 74 minutes (the established time for a TV movie). Therefore, Spielberg added, for example, the intro of driving through the streets of Los Angeles, and scenes like the school bus.
Dennis Weaver, in an image from ‘Duel’ and, in the small photo, in the role that made him most famous, that of television commissioner McCloud.
3. The protagonist, a mindundi
We mean the character, not the actor. The ‘good’ protagonist of ‘The Devil on Wheels’ is as bland as his name: David Mann. From the first sequences, it is clear that he is an absolute anti-hero, a representative of something that is not said in the film, who has to travel many kilometers a day to visit his clients. Even before experiencing the almost fatal harassment of the trucker, his face shows an almost existential burden, which is justified when he calls his wife from the first gas station (after experiencing the first incident with the truck). In said telephone conversation, David Mann makes it clear that he is a mindundi, a wimp, begging his wife for a pardon for a fight that, by the way, is not granted. As the film progresses, this weak personality will increase his victimization in the face of the truck attacks.
To play David Mann, Universal had a Hollywood classic in mind, Gregory Peck, who turned down the role. Spielberg had Dennis Weaver (Joplin, Missouri, 1924- Ridgway, Colorado, 2006) from the beginning, a versatile actor, both on Broadway and on television, in fact he had won an Emmy in 1959, who had had some good forays into the cinema, as a supporting role in ‘Thirst for Evil’ (1958), by Orson Wells. For this role he was mainly remembered by Spielberg. Although Weaver’s greatest success was undoubtedly the McCloud series (1970-1978), in which he played a commissioner from the very deep New Mexico who is assigned to New York. It was the role that produced him the most fame, internationally, Spain included. In any case, at the end of his career Dennis Weaver declared that the role of his life had undoubtedly been that of the bland David Mann in ‘The devil on wheels’.
The Plymouth Valiant, a ‘town car’ for the bland anti-hero who becomes a hero in ‘Duel’.
4. The car, a Plymouth Valiant
David Mann’s car had to look almost as pathetic as he did, to make the harassment, the pressure of the giant truck on his victim, look even more brutal. And that’s why an ‘ordinary’ car was chosen, a Plymouth Valiant, a ‘people’s’ model, zero aspirational but perfect for the protagonist’s work trips and to take the family (it’s the four-door version)… and nothing more. Another of the reasons that made the Valiant pass the ‘casting’ was its limited power, 115 horsepower, to make it credible that a car could not go faster than a 20-ton monster.
After choosing the model, Spielberg asked that it be red, to contrast not only with the dirty and rusty color of the truck, but also with the desert landscape, of muted reds and browns. In total, three models were used, which were not totally identical, as they were those corresponding to the years 1970, 1971 and 1972. This last one was used for the additional scenes that had to be filmed to lengthen the film by 16 minutes and so on. to be released in movie theaters.
Advertising from the time of the Plymouth Valiant.
What is clear is that in Plymouth they must not have been very happy with the film. Because the negative publicity about the Valiant is brutal: not only is it clear that it is slower than a 20-ton truck from the 50s, but it also breaks the radiator in the last scenes of ‘Duel’.
The menacing ‘face’ of the ’55 Peterbilt 281, one of the biggest ‘serial killers’ in cinema.
5. A ‘serial killer’ on wheels
In any case, it goes without saying that the absolute protagonist of ‘The Devil on Wheels’ is the bad guy. And how unfair it was that Spielberg didn’t include in the credits the name ‘1955 Peterbilt 281’, the make, model and year of one of the most brutal assassins in movie history (although, to be honest, he doesn’t have any). ‘proven’ victim).
Although Spielberg and Universal went around a lot until they found Dennis Weaver, the human protagonist, the good guy, they did more to find the bad guy. Because the director was very clear that the truck had to be brutal, he had to be very scary even before he started committing misdeeds. The look of him had to be very imposing, and not just because we are talking about a gigantic 20-ton trailer. And for this reason, Spielberg discarded all the modern trucks that were put in front of him and decided on an already obsolete Peterbilt 281 from the year 55.
Peterbilt is a company specializing in heavy commercial vehicles, founded in 1939 and based in Denton (Texas). The 281 model, which was in production between 1956 and 1974, was characterized by a very long ‘nose’ and a single, small, round headlight on each side. All this endowed the Peterbilt with a very ‘human’ face, which was just what Spielberg was looking for, that the truck had human features to be very scary. Although the model used in the film was already 16 years old, they proceeded to dirty, rust and even ‘decorate’ the entire front of the truck with dead insects, to give a totally decadent sensation, in addition to preventing a clear vision of the driver, who does not show his face at any point in the film.
The license plates that the Peterbilt 281 from ‘Duel’ carried: trophies of other victims?
The feature…
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