"The film was done without tricks or speeding-up." On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch ("A Man and a Woman") mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Mercedes and drove at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit. The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets. Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until it was released a few years ago. Lelouch explained that he used a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 to have enough stability while filming, but used the sound of a Ferrari 275 GTB for the soundtrack.