Steven Spielberg’s Duel is Also the World’s Worst Driving Instruction Video

Apparently, today is the day that I share with the Internet my deep and abiding love of the 1971 Steven Spielberg movie Duel. Based on a Richard Matheson short story, Duel is a simple, bare bones flick — okay, fine, it is arguably a 90-minute long car chase scene — that is as gripping as movies come, pitting an everyman travelling salesman against a killer tanker truck that by all rights should have a higher place in the pantheon of menacing movie villains.

As Dennis Weaver’s salesman is harassed, chased, banged around, and nearly killed by the Darth Vader of big rigs, there is some truly dangerous driving on display at every turn. This, of course, is why it works so well when our buddies over at Slacktory recut the movie, replacing most of the audio with that of a driver’s ed filmstrip from 1949. The result is pure genius, as well as a great way to watch pretty much all the important parts of Duel in just under four minutes. 

(via Slacktory)

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