Chameleon Street

Chameleon Street is a very amusing look at an intriguing character, who seems to find peace in recreating himself through various occupational, and identity transformations. He brilliantly masquerades as a number of professionals, and takes his audience through a thrill ride of elaborate schemes to make money, while carefully concealing his true identity. Ultimately, he is unable to escape his own character flaws, which cause his elaborate plot to unravel, thread by thread, before his very eyes. Although other stories have chronicled the lives of impostors, none have been told in such a refreshingly comical manner. It is a treat to watch.

Inspired by the real life exploits of an African American man who impersonated everything from a lawyer to a surgeon to a foreign exchange student in the 1970s, 'Chameleon Street' might sound a lot like 'Catch Me If You Can', but this is a distinctly different sort of film. In the hands of writer-director Wendell B. Harris Jr., the protagonist is a curiously pitied character: one who cannot help but "intuit" the needs and desires of everyone he meets and "become that need" - far closer to the title character in 'Zelig' than Frank Abagnale Jr. There is a lot to like in how his dilemma feels like a hyperbolic metaphor for the way we all function, acting differently in different situations depending on who else we are with. The film's dramatic crunch comes from how his chameleonic nature impacts on his ability to be the father and husband that his family wants, though this area feels a tad undernourished due to a very false performance by the actress playing his daughter as well as the script's constant inflection towards comedy. And yet, while the laughs tend to overshadow the drama, the funny moments work incredibly well. Highlights include the protagonist lecturing a drunk on how to conjugate the F-word, a fake epileptic seizure that gets out of control and him rambling off a whole string of "J'accuse" sentences while trying to speak French.

I saw this movie after it was recommended by The Criterion Channel. The premise of "Chameleon Street" is simple: a guy needs money, so he impersonates people in order to get money.

Titular William Douglas Street's morality is vintage confidence man, as is his technique. The film's narrative is uncomplicated, a by the numbers imposter flick in the tradition of "The Great Imposter (1961) or "Catch Me If You Can" (2002) with a hint of "Hollywood Shuffle" (1987).

"Chameleon Street" appears to have had a low but decent budget, unlike some other Sundance successes. At times the camera and lighting techniques reminded me of Robert Florey's "The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra" (1928).

If the movie has a problem, it resides with Street himself. An imposter only after money, a point Harris emphasizes in addressing the camera, falls a little flat, at least in relation to, say, the Will Smith character of Paul, in "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993). Street displays only the mundane pathology of straitened circumstances with a little greed thrown in. There is hardly any dark side to his character, unlike Ferdinand Waldo Demara's great imposter or DiCaprio's Frank Abagnale.

Actor Wendell Harris gives an adequate, if less than brilliant, rendition of his subject. I would have appreciated a little less of his overbroad, wink-wink approach to some of Street's "roles". But writer Harris is good, very good. The dialog is often witty, eloquent, even garnished with butchered French in one of Street's "roles". According to this website, this movie is Harris' only writing credit, a shame. This guy can write.

If you want to hear well crafted dialog composed with wit, verve, and all those other things that have been missing from your screens, this is the movie for you.

About half as good as "Catch Me If You Can", this at times funny film is way too one note, that note, of course, being that the white establishment is so stupid that it can even be hoodwinked by a none too clever con artist. I got the point after the first scam involving the title character impersonating a Time Magazine journalist and by the middle of the second, when Street pretends to be a surgeon, I was officially tired of the whole thing. That I didn't bail until the start of the third impersonation (an African exchange student at Yale) was mostly due to writer/director/star Wendell B Harris' comic chops, which are not inconsiderable. Kinda surprised that he didn't get a shot at a second feature, at least as a scenarist and/or actor. Give it a C plus.