It may seem hard to believe, but Steven Spielberg’s Duel will be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. The cult classic film originally aired on television in 1971, and it stars David Mann as a salesman driving through the Mojave Desert on a business trip, only to find himself being relentlessly pursued by the merciless driver of a gigantic truck.
While it was originally produced as an episode of the anthology series ABC Movie of the Week, an extended version of Duel was later released in cinemas and received highly positive reviews. Spielberg went on to become arguably the most famous director of all time, and since Duel was his first-ever feature length film, it is easy to understand why the 1971 classic is held in such high regard by critics and film historians.
To celebrate the fiftieth year since its original release, Fabulous Films Limited will release a special fiftieth anniversary home video edition of Duel packed with new bonus features in the UK on May 31, and you can pre-order your copy from Amazon. The stunning cover art for this new edition was illustrated by renowned horror artist Graham Humphreys, and he clearly did an incredible job.
Throughout his extensive career, Humphreys has also drawn posters for The Evil Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Return of the Living Dead, and Psycho Goreman, and he also creates the annual promotional posters for the London FrightFest Film Festival. We spoke to Humphreys about his incredible new artwork for the fiftieth anniversary home video edition of Duel, and he discussed everything from the process of designing the image to why he loves the film in the first place. You can read the full interview below, and we have also included his Duel artwork underneath the text.
Dread Central: What makes Duel such an endearing film?
Graham Humphreys: Although I imagine there are many responses to that question, I’ll offer mine. It represents primal fears that underpin human behaviour, driving (literally!) people to extremes of irrational behaviour, in both the pursuer and the pursued. Ego, fury, terror, bravado and the eternal dilemma… fight or flight?
The faceless foe is a simple metaphor for the unknown, reminding us that knowledge is the key to understanding (and the comfort of control). The simple yarn of David and Goliath, is updated to the comedic levels at which automobiles are central to an aspirational American existence, played out in armour of steel and rubber.
DC: Seeing as Steven Spielberg is arguably the most famous director in history, it must have been a great honour to have been asked to illustrate the fiftieth anniversary poster for his first ever feature film?
GH: Arguably indeed! He is certainly one of the most commercially successful! But you are right, it was a genuine pleasure to receive the commission. I’d painted my version of a ‘Jaws’ poster for a private client in 2020, the common theme of ‘man vs. predator’ is shared in both films. I liked the idea of ‘Jaws on tarmac’, a theme that has been beautifully rendered by other poster artists – although my commission needed to be directly representative.
DC: Can you talk about the visual design of the poster and how you created the image?
GH: When I have to create a new image for a familiar film, I always try to find new elements to offer something fresh. In my submitted sketches I experimented with reducing the truck and car to background elements, creating forground drama with a snake and lizard (both reptiles are featured within the film). My intention was to demonstrate how the ‘duel’ (ie. the idiotic squabbles of man) was of such little significance in the vast setting of nature, the heat of the desert and hidden dramas among the creatures that truly inhabit the terrain. It was also a subtle reference to the later box office success of Spielberg’s ‘Jurassic Park’, another man vs predator film, where reptiles are the foreground stars!
Ultimately, my client requested a simple focussed image, truck vs. car.
DC: Looking at your poster, I can see that you re-created one of the chase sequences from the film. Was it a challenge to capture such a suspenseful moment in an illustration?
GH: In the same way that the great white in ‘Jaws’ exits in a sea of blue water, I wanted to see the truck (as predator) in its natural habitat of filth and dust, filling the image with pollutants and erasing the blue sky. The red paintwork of the Plymouth Valiant, is the colour of blood, like the ‘chum’ used to bait the great white. I wanted to give the sense of a trapped animal where the truck has filled the background, a massive presence that offers no escape, whilst the smaller car careers in blind panic. The composition uses the parallels of the image frame, giving the truck strength and stability (strong horizontal and vertical lines), but the car is skewed at an angle, out of control and unable to stay within the frame.
DC: Was it also a challenge to make a truck look frightening?
GH: It’s the faceless nature of the truck that helps generate the fear. No driver is seen. The rusted and ravaged surface presents a beast-like appearance, malevolent and fearless. I just needed to recreate and accentuate the surface detail. It provides the villain to the heroic and shining armour of the Plymouth.
DC: Seeing as Duel takes place in a desert, you absolutely managed to capture the sweltering desert heat in your image, which must have been quite a difficult task?
GH: Creating an atmosphere in any image requires a basic understanding of colour and texture. Artists rely on their own experiences of an environment to help build a convincing sense of place and time. The heat is always made worse by the dust that fills the nostrils and brings a sense of suffocation.
It’s another reference to ‘Jaws’, – instead of being unable to breathe under water, heat and dust fill the lungs. The colours are intentionally the opposite of blue.
DC: And was it also a conscious decision for the brightly coloured red car in the poster to have created such a contract against the darker colours in the rest of the image?
GH: That decision was presumably made in the production design, but it certainly presented me with fantastic visual material. Often my own work is made easier by the work of the filmmakers!
I just needed to give the illusion of bright sunlight on smooth metal, a variety of red hues help create the effect. The darkened rust hues and textures of the truck gives a sense of age and a relentless brutal existence. A complete contrast to the youthful and innocent sheen of the smaller prey.
DC: And lastly, I think you perfectly captured the likeness of the late actor Dennis Weaver, who played protagonist David Mann in Duel. How did you find the experience of drawing his face?
GH: The expression was the most important aspect. Whereas the truck driver is unseen and reduced to a terrifying primal force, the human face of the car driver is exposed and clearly seen. I wanted to signify the sense of a soft prey in armour, wanting to believe that they are protected and in control, yet vulnerable and powerless.
It was interesting that the sunglasses that Dennis Weaver is wearing, created reflections that seemed to accentuate a wide eyed terror. Whilst it was therefore difficult to retain an accurate likeness, it helped to build the character caught in a moment.
DUEL 50TH Anniversary Official Synopsis From Distributor Fabulous Films
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.
EXTRAS:
A CONVERSATION WITH DIRECTOR STEVEN SPIELBERG • STEVEN SPIELBERG AND THE SMALL SCREEN • RICHARD MATHESON : WRITING OF DUEL • TRAILER • PHOTOGRAPH AND POSTER GALLERY • ALL NEW GRAHAM HUMPHREYS SLEEVE DESIGN • CONTAINS FOLD-OUT DOUBLE-SIDED GRAHAM HUMPHREYS ARTWORK POSTER. 58 mins of Extras.
