Lucas had nothing but praise for Spielberg’s most recent effort, an edge-of-the-seat made-for-TV thriller called Duel, about a mild-mannered motorist being stalked by the unseen driver of a tanker truck. Lucas had watched it at Coppola’s house during a party, shutting himself into an upstairs room while the festivities raged below him. “I ran downstairs and said, ‘Francis, you’ve got to come see this movie. This guy’s really good.’… I was very, very impressed with his work.”57
