Chameleon Street

Chameleon Street is a 1989 independent film written by, directed by and starring Wendell B. Harris, Jr.. It tells the story of a social chameleon who impersonates reporters, doctors and lawyers in order to make money.
The film is a satire based on the life of Detroit con artist and high-school drop-out William Douglas Street, Jr., who successfully impersonated professional reporters, lawyers, athletes, extortionists, and surgeons, going so far as to perform more than 36 successful hysterectomies. A Sundance Film Festival press release in 2008 described it as "one of the first films to examine how mellifluously race, class, and role-playing morph into the social fabric of America." "Chameleon Street" won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival.
Reception.
"The Washington Post" found the film disappointing: "What we have here is a brilliant concept, but unfortunately, Harris just isn't a filmmaker -- not even in the most rudimentary sense. His failures are all on the most basic level. He can't plot or shape scenes; he can't draw out his actors; he can't write dialogue or mount it; he can't create any consistent rhythms or sense of pace." Similarly, "The Hartford Courant" said, ""Chameleon Street" feels like a series of improvised skits, some imaginative and funny, some hackneyed... [Harris] writes with élan and wit, but his sense of structure is minimal, so "Chameleon Street" feels jumpy and disjointed."
On the other hand, "The Philadelphia Inquirer" was more generous: "Though, like its subject, the film goes on some pretty strange tangents, "Chameleon Street" is largely successful as the diary of a compulsive trickster whose marks are suckered by Street's confidence and instinct for telling people what they want to hear. Harris' truth-is-stronger-than-fiction rap is both funny and insightful."