Finally, See Spielberg's "Duel" on the Big Screen (If You Can Get to Denver Monday)

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Because the power of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™ is so extreme, the Alamo Drafthouse Theater in Denver has fallen under my spell and allowed me to select and introduce four car films, to be shown each Monday during their “Alamo Takes the Wheel” month of April (actually, it was the endorsement of Repo Man director Alex Cox, who teaches at the University of Colorado, that convinced the Alamo management that this idea wasn’t completely stupid). The first of those films is the amazing Duel, an all-time-great Malaise Era car movie that shouldn’t need any introduction for TTAC readers.

In fact, my original plan for these Monday car movies involved having four triple features, including such must-see car films as The Junkman and Blue Collar, but the Alamo management just gave me the same funny look that people give me when I talk about putting an LZ9 engine into a Cadillac Cimarron. Anyway, so they picked four films from my twelve-film list, and they’ll be showing one on each Monday in April. Duel shows on April 6 at 7:30 PM, and moviegoers are strongly encouraged to bring their coolest, weirdest, and/or hooptiest vehicles to show off in the theater parking lot beforehand.


Once Duel (which even I have never seen on the big screen) is done, we’ll have three more Monday movies selected and introduced by yours truly. These are:


Monday, April 13 at 7:30 PM: The Car


Monday, April 20 at 7:30 PM: Up In Smoke (Yes, this is actually one of the greatest car movies of all time, and you wastoids even get to see it on 4/20).


Monday, April 27 at 7:30 PM: Two-Lane Blacktop

Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • 87 Morgan 87 Morgan on Apr 01, 2015

    I will be in town monday, may have to check this out. I live way out in the burbs. So getting downtown, which is where I assumed this theater is dank prove to be tough. I have two lane blacktop on tape and would love to get it on DVD. perhaps a good discussion board would be what are the top 10 or 20? Must have movies every gear head should own.

  • Nrd515 Nrd515 on Apr 02, 2015

    I remember me and my dad watching "Duel" the first time it was shown. Dennis Weaver's whiny voice made him perfect for the part. I saw a tractor like the one in the movie for sale in AZ once for $1000 in 1979 or so, and I tried to convince my friend, who had a commercial license, to go halves on it with me and buy it. It had that same grungy patina on it, and driving it around Vegas would have been hilarious. Everyone I knew had seen Duel and would have loved it.

  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
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