Duel 1971

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Glenn A
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Duel 1971

Post by Glenn A »

I know most people rave about the scenes in the desert with the tanker, but I find Mann driving his Plymouth through LA at the beginning just as interesting as it shows how good LA's road system was even in 1971 and always love the pair of tunnels he drives through.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0707XtiFPs
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Re: Duel 1971

Post by RichardA626 »

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World shows off the roads around LA quite nicely, many that were semi rural in the early 1960s are now in the suburbs.
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Re: Duel 1971

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I caught the end of Smokey and the Bandit on utv/itv last night, and that showed off some of the rural interstates in Georgia quite nicely.
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Glenn A
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Re: Duel 1971

Post by Glenn A »

c2R wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 07:08 I caught the end of Smokey and the Bandit on utv/itv last night, and that showed off some of the rural interstates in Georgia quite nicely.
I've seen this film numerous times and I wonder if it inspired another Georgia based series, The Dukes Of Hazzard, although part of this was filmed in California to save money.
As regards Duel, I quite like how it starts with David Mann fighting through the LA traffic, playing around with his car radio, and then the traffic thins out as he approaches the desert and the tanker, and the radio reception fades. I think this is a sign in the film that he is leaving behind his safe, suburban life to face a lethal enemy in the desert where no one can help him. Also the film does show how advanced a road system LA had and how the city had been built around the car.
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Re: Duel 1971

Post by CallumParry »

Glenn A wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 12:54
c2R wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 07:08 I caught the end of Smokey and the Bandit on utv/itv last night, and that showed off some of the rural interstates in Georgia quite nicely.
I've seen this film numerous times and I wonder if it inspired another Georgia based series, The Dukes Of Hazzard, although part of this was filmed in California to save money.
As regards Duel, I quite like how it starts with David Mann fighting through the LA traffic, playing around with his car radio, and then the traffic thins out as he approaches the desert and the tanker, and the radio reception fades. I think this is a sign in the film that he is leaving behind his safe, suburban life to face a lethal enemy in the desert where no one can help him. Also the film does show how advanced a road system LA had and how the city had been built around the car.

Having visited Los Angeles at least 5 times and driven extensively around the city and surrounding area! I can vouch for LA having a far superior road network than any city in the UK yes its poorly maintained in parts but even closing 1 lane of a 6 lane freeway can cause endless delays. LA has some of the best interchanges and road engineering i've seen (I-110/105 Fwy Interchange as an example) the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass. The city suffers from chronic congestion at the peak hours but when traffic is like the city is a dream to drive and you'll be surprised at how much ground you can cover in a short time.
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Re: Duel 1971

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The closest you can get to this is probably Glasgow. Off peak I drove from near Falkirk to Kelvingrove and it was a breeze using the M80 and M8 straight into the centre. In most other UK cities getting to the centre is a traffic light infested pain, with a lot of stop-start, even in light traffic.
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Glenn A
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Re: Duel 1971

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M19 wrote: Thu Sep 17, 2020 22:34 The closest you can get to this is probably Glasgow. Off peak I drove from near Falkirk to Kelvingrove and it was a breeze using the M80 and M8 straight into the centre. In most other UK cities getting to the centre is a traffic light infested pain, with a lot of stop-start, even in light traffic.
Glasgow also has one of the lowest levels of car ownership in the UK and an excellent motorway network, so you have the best of both worlds. Also extending the M74 through southern Glasgow to meet the M8 in the west end has reduced pressure on the A74 and the city centre.
LA needed a huge network of freeways and grade seperated routes from the 1950s onwards as nearly all households owned at least one car by the end of the 1950s.
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Gav
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Re: Duel 1971

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Glenn A wrote: Sat Sep 19, 2020 13:42
M19 wrote: Thu Sep 17, 2020 22:34 The closest you can get to this is probably Glasgow. Off peak I drove from near Falkirk to Kelvingrove and it was a breeze using the M80 and M8 straight into the centre. In most other UK cities getting to the centre is a traffic light infested pain, with a lot of stop-start, even in light traffic.
Glasgow also has one of the lowest levels of car ownership in the UK and an excellent motorway network, so you have the best of both worlds. Also extending the M74 through southern Glasgow to meet the M8 in the west end has reduced pressure on the A74 and the city centre.
LA needed a huge network of freeways and grade seperated routes from the 1950s onwards as nearly all households owned at least one car by the end of the 1950s.
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Re: Duel 1971

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RichardA626 wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 21:59 It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World shows off the roads around LA quite nicely, many that were semi rural in the early 1960s are now in the suburbs.
Likewise in South Africa. Anybody who has studied the "Rivonia trial" when the South African Police arrested the principal members of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1963 will know that the Lilliesleaf Farm, where they were arrested was in a rural location. Arthur Goldriech, a white anti-Apartheid activist bought the farm in Rivonia, a posh rural location close to Johnnesburg. It was used as a "safe house" for ANC activists on account of its rural location and its proximity to Johannesburg. It is now a South African national heritage site. (See photos here). When I visited it about five years ago, it was in the middle of suburbia.
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Re: Duel 1971

Post by Glenn A »

A more recent film I watched was Unhinged, starring Russell Crowe as someone who flips during a road rage incident, and it showed how severely congested LA was these days, with one of the characters deciding to avoid the freeway as it was so busy and use the old S2 routes, only to find them just as congested.
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Re: Duel 1971

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Some of the footage from Duel was reused in an episode of The Incredible Hulk, which was weird.

CHiPs, one of my late seventies teenage favourites, has loads of footage of Californian roads - the opening title sequences, which went through several iterations, are fantastic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5slUrfEuIMk

Apparently they often used completed but yet to be opened roads to stage crash/chase scenes.
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Re: Duel 1971

Post by jgharston »

CHiPs also showed how changable the weather was. From watching films and TV you'd think California was uniformly beautifully warm and dry. Several episodes of CHiPs were in bucketing rain, and included in the plot.
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Re: Duel 1971

Post by RichardA626 »

jgharston wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 02:21 CHiPs also showed how changable the weather was. From watching films and TV you'd think California was uniformly beautifully warm and dry. Several episodes of CHiPs were in bucketing rain, and included in the plot.
I remember Neighbours seemed to always make Australia look permanently sunny, but sometimes it was obvious in some location shots that it was raining in the background.
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Glenn A
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Re: Duel 1971

Post by Glenn A »

jgharston wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 02:21 CHiPs also showed how changable the weather was. From watching films and TV you'd think California was uniformly beautifully warm and dry. Several episodes of CHiPs were in bucketing rain, and included in the plot.
San Francisco can often be cool and wet and shrouded in mist and it can snow further inland in the north. LA tends to have hot and dry summers, but it does rain in winter.
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