10 Movies That Accidentally Filmed Things You Weren't Supposed To See

3. A Stunt Driver Accidentally Crashed Into An Unsuspecting Civilian (The French Connection)

The French Connection
20th Century Fox

Classic 1971 action-thriller The French Connection contains one of the most iconic vehicle chases in movie history, with Gene Hackman's detective Jimmy Doyle speeding through New York's crowded downtown streets. But amazingly, very little about this sequence was actually planned in advance.

This is because director William Friedkin didn't have all the permits he needed to film on the streets. As such, there was very little traffic control, and basically the whole thing was improvised, with stunt driver Bill Hickman dodging and weaving - at high speeds - past ordinary civilian cars, who had no idea that a chase was being filmed.

It isn't an exaggeration to say that this sequence was life-threatening to shoot, and this danger was made perfectly clear when the stunt car accidentally smashed into an unsuspecting white Ford, causing significant damage to both vehicles.

As with all the other close calls during the chase, this incident (3:26 in the video below) was completely unplanned. Reportedly, the man whose car was hit was on his morning work commute, and was simply unlucky enough to get caught up in the action.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!