Great lost films are not from 1919, but from the last 20 years.
In the film CHAMELEON STREET, the enigmatic Doug Street puts on a series of cons, sometimes to make money, sometimes to prove he can do more than what the world expects of him. In short time he goes from a simple extortion plot to complex impersonations, including as a reporter from Time, a Yale student, a lawyer and even a surgeon. Yes, a surgeon.
The point of the film is not just to tell a story of a conman, but asks what a black man is expected to do to make a living in this modern world. Based mostly on the true story of super-con-man William Douglas Street Jr, the film is written and directed by Wendell B. Harris Jr, who also turns in an uncanny performance as the lead character. The film existed in the burgeoning indie cinema of the early 90s. Unlike most of the films around him though, Harris provided a complicated character and not a simple genre drama or comedy. The extremely intelligent Street has great ideas to fight the system, but is constantly stumped by tiny details he cannot control. It’s a drama and you root for Street to win but feel sorry for the people getting conned as well. And it’s bittersweet funny, as the sardonic humor in the film rings all too true. Above all, you feel the frustration that leads to fighting back against the grain.
Harris acted in his own super-8 film shorts growing up in Flint, Michigan. After reading an article on Street in 1983, he started researching and interviewing him in order to write the script, resulting in 36 versions of the script over 4 years.
The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1990. But that didn’t lead to distribution. Rather, the prize led to many meetings in Hollywood, the insult of a possible remake rather than a distribution deal, some deals for writing scripts, and a brutal joke.
CHAMELEON STREET did get a forgettable theatrical release and Wendell was able to write some scripts. Only now at the end of 2007 does the film finally get a DVD release. A new video transfer, loads of extras about the making of the film in luscious 1980s video, and the trailer for the film. Also two great short videos, You Know Leadbelly?, which is an entertaining short resulting from pre-production character studies, and the great Colette Vignette, a heavily edited short that shows the basis for some of the artistic ends Harris puts into the film.
The behind-the-scenes footage is appropriately called The Process. The mainstream process of the film industry did not work as well. One of his projects that didn’t take off was Negropolis, a sword-and-sandal satire that he hoped would star Howard Stern as Alexander the Great (remember its 1990), Oprah as Cleopatra with a consortion of Cleos around the world, and Harris himself as “Canigula.” But STREET remains Harris’ only film as director.
The long overdue DVD is great. The big extra is a layered, interesting group of scenes presented as a 30-minute trailer for his film-in-progress titled Arbiter Roswell. Entirely shot, Harris is currently editing what may be the definitive film document on UFOs.
In the end, Harris feels like there is only one way to look at filmmaking.
I recently interviewed Harris for my zine Cinemad, which is available right here.
DVD available now from Home Vision and Image Entertainment for $26.99.
