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Chameleon Street -
This is the true story of William Douglas Street, Jr., a black Michigan man who left his steady yet low-paying alarm installation career for one of extortion and impersonation. He passed himself off as a reporter, a lawyer and a surgeon, and unlike what Catch Me if You Can posits about Frank Abagnale, he could perform these roles' duties (he did over 30 successful hysterectomies, for instance). Speaking of that movie, while it's similar structurally, it is much different stylistically and thematically. It is also about what goes into a successful impersonation and that all of us play parts from time to time - it also reminded me of Being There in this regard - but it says a lot about how too many black people must sacrifice their identities to keep up in the American rat race. Wendell B. Harris, Jr., who also wrote and directed, is charismatic, fearless and very funny as Street. With the aid of a voice fit for radio, he makes Street a classic smooth talker, which makes it easy to understand why he could play so many parts and succeed at something he did in each one: woo women. The scene where he does this while interviewing an upcoming tennis player gave me a good laugh as did one where he pretends to be a foreign exchange student and spouts nonsensical phrases to the delight of his classmates who believe - or want each other to believe - his gibberish is enriching them culturally. Where Harris's acting and writing talent truly shine, however, are in his impassioned digs at his lighter-skinned fellow citizens. They shocked me for their pointedness and honesty despite the movie's age, and while the studios' explanation for the movie's limited distribution is its lack of marketability, I wouldn't be surprised if scenes like these are an actual reason. Like Idiocracy, a movie that suffered a similar fate, studios may have assumed that the movie would have fanned too many flames. I have namedropped many other movies in this review, but Chameleon Street is very much its own entity. It's a rough around the edges and obviously low budget entity, but it makes up for it with its uniqueness, ingenuity and fearlessness to end up being being a movie bound to intrigue anyone interested in white-collar crime or American race relations.
This is the true story of William Douglas Street, Jr., a black Michigan man who left his steady yet low-paying alarm installation career for one of extortion and impersonation. He passed himself off as a reporter, a lawyer and a surgeon, and unlike what Catch Me if You Can posits about Frank Abagnale, he could perform these roles' duties (he did over 30 successful hysterectomies, for instance). Speaking of that movie, while it's similar structurally, it is much different stylistically and thematically. It is also about what goes into a successful impersonation and that all of us play parts from time to time - it also reminded me of Being There in this regard - but it says a lot about how too many black people must sacrifice their identities to keep up in the American rat race. Wendell B. Harris, Jr., who also wrote and directed, is charismatic, fearless and very funny as Street. With the aid of a voice fit for radio, he makes Street a classic smooth talker, which makes it easy to understand why he could play so many parts and succeed at something he did in each one: woo women. The scene where he does this while interviewing an upcoming tennis player gave me a good laugh as did one where he pretends to be a foreign exchange student and spouts nonsensical phrases to the delight of his classmates who believe - or want each other to believe - his gibberish is enriching them culturally. Where Harris's acting and writing talent truly shine, however, are in his impassioned digs at his lighter-skinned fellow citizens. They shocked me for their pointedness and honesty despite the movie's age, and while the studios' explanation for the movie's limited distribution is its lack of marketability, I wouldn't be surprised if scenes like these are an actual reason. Like Idiocracy, a movie that suffered a similar fate, studios may have assumed that the movie would have fanned too many flames. I have namedropped many other movies in this review, but Chameleon Street is very much its own entity. It's a rough around the edges and obviously low budget entity, but it makes up for it with its uniqueness, ingenuity and fearlessness to end up being being a movie bound to intrigue anyone interested in white-collar crime or American race relations.