MOVIE TRAILERS

4K Restoration of Wendell B. Harris Jr.'s 'Chameleon Street' Trailer

by Alex Billington
October 10, 2021
Source: YouTube

"I think, therefore I scam." Arbelos Films has revealed a new trailer for the 4K restoration of this award-winning indie comedy titled Chameleon Street, which originally premiered in 1989 at the Toronto Film Festival. it then went on to win the top Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival, but has been forgotten ever since then. "Gloriously strange… a lost masterpiece of black American cinema." Wendell B. Harris Jr. stars in, and writes / directs, the film. William Douglas Street is bored with his life. Working for his father is getting to him, his wife wants more money, and he's had enough. His solution is to re-invent himself. He becomes a "chameleon", taking on whatever role suits the situation. From reporter to doctor to lawyer, he impersonates anyone he sees a need for and he can earn money being. Based on real people and real stories. This is a bit like Catch Me If You Can, but a whole decade before Spielberg made that film. I am glad this has been restored and is finally getting its chance to shine again up on the big screen. Take a look.

Here's the new 4K restoration trailer for Wendell B. Harris Jr's film Chameleon Street, from YouTube:

From NYFF: "Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival, Wendell B. Harris Jr.’s debut feature endures as a brilliant satirical examination of the place of race and class in the performance of American social life. Harris himself stars as William Douglas Street Jr., a real-life con man from Detroit who, disillusioned with working for his father, sets about reinventing himself—and then again, and then again—successfully impersonating a vast succession of journalists, lawyers, athletes, and even surgeons in the process. The film boldly shape-shifts to match its subject’s own chameleonic transformations, yielding not just a landmark work in American independent cinema but also a singular meditation on the mutability of American identity that’s dense with aesthetic and political ideas." Chameleon Street is both written and directed by American filmmaker Wendell B. Harris Jr., his first and only film. This first premiered at the 1989 Toronto Film Festival, then played at Sundance in early 1990. Arbelos Films will re-release Chameleon Street in 4K at select US theaters (BAM in NYC) on October 22nd, 2021. For info, visit their official site.

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