Dueling Banjos was made famous by the 1972 film "Deliverance," which also led to a successful lawsuit by the song's composer, as it was used in the film without Smith's permission. The film version was arranged and recorded by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell, but only credited to Weissberg on a single subsequently issued in December 1972. It went to #2 for four weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in 1973, all four weeks behind Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly with His Song," and topped the adult contemporary chart for two weeks the same year. It reached #1 for one week on
Fear in the Night (1972 film) to set the scene for the story proper, but the film never again recovers from the icy, morbid impression of its opening. David Huckvale, author of "Hammer Films' Psychological Thrillers, 1950-1972", compared the film's treatment of flashback and time to "Parsifal", and claims that the film operates as a "series of essays on nostalgia"— "The plot of "Fear in the Night" depends on Peggy's vulnerability caused by [...] trauma, and much of the film's dramatic tension is built upon her anxiety that the past is "not" over and done with." Huckvale also draws comparisons on the character of Molly Carmichael