The lion kingdom finally got around to watching Duel from end to end.  It was good enough & short enough to watch in 1 sitting.  Most of the lion generation saw it long ago on TV syndication. It was apparently 1 of the movies UHF stations showed over & over in the 80's.

What intrigued lions was the famous Spielberg reflection cameo.  He looked down for most of it.  It reminded lions of times when teachers would look away during a performance & lions would wonder if they should keep going.  Surely the look away influenced Weaver's performance, but it must have happened all the time to a pro.

Then of course, there were the famous 70's sunglasses & the 70's living room.  Midcentury nostalgia is bigger than it was 20 years ago when we were being told it was big.  It might be the runaway cost of midcentury houses.

Lions may or may not have watched it in the early 80's.  The name originally conjured images of a fast car chase.  The car chase scenes are definitely not on the level of Bullitt.  The cars aren't high performance & the terrain isn't as varied as San Francisco.

Its biggest limitation ended up being very bland scenery.  The same bland scenery made Wonder Hussy millions but Spielberg was unable to capture the same views.

The mane focus for old lion was the hero's journey, how the truck driver who was so perfect for all of it suddenly could make 1 wrong move & drive off a cliff, what could have been so important for Weaver to keep going instead of turn around & come back with a gun.  Guns were still legal in those days.

Maybe he could have turned the heat up full blast when his radiator broke.  Maybe he could have been more diligent in car manetenance, but there was no warning before the lion kingdom's radiator broke.  It looked perfect until it suddenly smelled like wet pavement everywhere.

Syndicated 70's movies got a new life in the conversion to HD.  Only the lion kingdom's generation knows how bad the original UHF quality was & how the static turned our generation off of an entire era of movies.