Steven Spielberg and Duel (English, Steven Awalt)

Product description Review Select Guide Rating About the Author Steven Awalt holds a master’s degree in cinema studies from DePaul University. Writer, film historian, and noted authority on Steven Spielberg’s career, Awalt appears in the retrospective documentary The Shark Is Still Working on the Blu-ray edition of Jaws. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Steven Spielberg and DuelThe Making of a Film CareerBy STEVEN AWALTROWMAN & LITTLEFIELDCopyright © 2014 Rowman & LittlefieldAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-8108-9260-6ContentsAcknowledgments, vii, 1 It Began as It Would End—with a Crash, 1, 2 Richard Matheson and "Duel": From Genesis to Short Story, 15, 3 Steven Spielberg, Universal Contract Director, 35, 4 A Well-Oiled Machine: Preproduction, 53, STORYBOARDS FOR DUEL, 63, 5 Duel in the Sun: The Production, the Film, 89, 6 Cutting to the Chase: Postproduction, 143, 7 Premiere, 163, 8 On the Road with Duel, 179, 9 Legacy, 195, TELEPLAY OF DUEL WITH ADDITIONAL SCENES, 211, Notes, 317, Bibliography, 331, Index, 337, About the Author, 345, CHAPTER 1It Began as It Would End—with a CrashPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA—1952The young boy was expecting an exciting time. His dad had promised to take him to see the circus, after all, and remembering his previous trip to the big top, five-year-old Stevie Spielberg already had anticipatory images of elephants, lions, and clowns parading around in his head.Arnold Spielberg, Stevie's father, parked the family car and led his son by the hand to a building with an outsized marquee that promised "The Greatest Show on Earth" above its entrance. Stevie and Arnold took their place in a bustling line of people. As they stood waiting, Stevie sized up the building. It was certainly large, as most buildings were from the vantage of such a small boy, but where could the circus big top be inside such a place? How did they fit all of the animals and circus performers inside?After about an hour and a half of waiting in line, Arnold and Stevie reached the box office, where Arnold bought two tickets, and then made their way into the dark recesses of the building. The crowd they moved in was ushered through a row of doors, into a dimly lit and cavernous hall. As they passed through the threshold, Stevie held his breath with excitement, expecting the candy-colored wonders of the circus to reveal themselves to him: carnival streamers, daring acrobats and mighty strongmen, brave lion tamers and fearless fire eaters. He anticipated the dull smell of sawdust on the ground, and firm wooden bleachers in the round where everyone had a great view of the center ring. Once his eyes adjusted to the shadowy room, however, his young heart deflated in disappointment. They were in a long, lifeless rectangular room full of folding chairs in neat rows, all facing forward to a wall covered floor to ceiling by thick, burgundy curtains."To go into this big cavernous hall and there's nothing but chairs and they're all facing up, they're not bleachers, they're chairs—I was thinking, 'Something's up, something is fishy,'" Steven Spielberg has subsequently said, reflecting back on the experience.Arnold and Stevie took their seats in the folding chairs, facing front along with everyone else in the growing audience, faces upturned, gazing blankly at the curtains that yielded no promise of a circus. After what seemed to Stevie an interminable wait, the curtains slowly parted, his imagination holding out a hitch of hope that the circus and its performers were merely hiding behind the thick drapes."I expect to see the elephants and there's nothing but a flat piece of white cardboard, a canvas. And I look at the canvas and suddenly a movie comes on and it's The Greatest Show on Earth."Arnold Spielberg had brought his son from their home in Camden, New Jersey, over to Philly for his first motion picture, the bigger-than-life Technicolor event film that would go on to win the Oscar for Best Picture in 1953, directed by master showman Cecil B. DeMille and starring Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton, and James Stewart. Knowing the boy had enjoyed the circus he and his wife, Leah, had taken Stevie to the previous summer, Arnold thought the five-year-old might be old enough to appreciate an afternoon at the movies. As the film began, DeMille himself promised that children of all ages would forget their troubles and delight in "a magic world ... a circus world of tinsel and spun candies and thrills."Stevie, however, was hardly amused by the laughter and thrills that DeMille was hawking."At first I was so disappointed, I was angry at my father, he told me he was taking me to a circus and it's just this flat piece of color.... For a while, I kept thinking, 'Gee, that's not fair. I wanted to see three-dimensional characters and all this was flat shadows, flat surfaces.'"Despite the initial letdown, one moment late in the film stuck with Stevie, and he would carry the impact of the moment with him throughout his life