Duel: A Conversation with Director Steven Spielberg Page #4

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I was able to do it from a bird's -eye

view looking straight down.

I didn't do single storyboard frames.

That would come later in my work.

But on this film, that overview

really helped me understand where I was.

When I jumped out of continuity,

I knew exactly where I was.

The truck was the antagonist.

In the story,

it had to have a personality.

It couldn't just be a sparkling new,

freshly minted truck.

The idea was to make the truck

look like a veteran...

of these road crimes.

This was "murder, incorporated"

on wheels.

There was grease on the windows

and fake dead bugs all over the grill...

and on the windscreen

and against the headlights.

The truck was painted oily

and streaked with oil...

coming out of every single possible

known vent on the truck.

The truck was put

into makeup every day.

Dennis Weaver was in his makeup chair.

The truck had seven or eight people...

with large brushes and mops,

spattering it...

and making it look

really grizzly and horrible.

It was the kind of makeup you would

do on Frankenstein or the Wolfman...

or the Phantom of the Opera.

All those license plates were the states

he drove motorists into the ground...

off cliffs,

against guard rails.

Those were the notches

in his Colt. 45.

The intention was that he was

basically a marauder in every state.

Cary, who liked to be called

"Old Vapor Lock"...

was a guy who I knew because I'm

a big fan of all the old westerns.

Cary Loftin and Dale Van Sickle,

who also worked on Duel...

were two of the most famous stuntmen

in the annals of Hollywood history.

I wanted Cary, and Cary

then suggested bringing Dale along.

Dale drove the car, and Cary drove the

truck. That was kind of the way it was.

There's no hidden piece

of antiquity about Cary Loftin...

as a background character

or standing by the roadside.

He was just the truck driver,

but he was a brilliant truck driver...

because I couldn't have

got any of these shots...

if it weren't for how safely

Cary drove that truck...

and yet made it look dangerous

and frightening and deadly.

But Cary was a very safe driver.

Actually, on certain scenes, we couldn't

get the truck to go very fast...

so I had to use tricks, like having

the camera lower to the ground.

And to create more speed from the truck,

I always put cliff walls...

on let's say

the east side of the highway.

Then I'd be in the insert car

with Pat Hustis driving...

with Jack Marta, the DP,

and the operator.

We'd be shooting toward the truck,

but always with that cliff rushing by.

As you know, you don't have to

go faster 25 miles an hour.

But if you shoot dead flat to a wall

or an obstacle moving by...

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