{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Film Comment Podcast","title":"Wendell B. Harris on Chameleon Street","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/5804892c\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3342,"description":"This Friday, a new restoration of the 1989 indie classic Chameleon Street opens at BAM. Wendell B. Harris’s utterly unique satire follows a real-life compulsive conman, Douglas Street, whose increasingly risky scams demonstrate both a sociopathic genius and a deep pathos. Wendell not only wrote and directed the film, but, like his hero Orson Welles, also played the lead character, with all of the dangerous charm of a man who conned his way into a surgical theater.\n\nOn today’s podcast, Wendell joins FC Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish for a fascinating oral history of the making of Chameleon Street, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. He also revealed that he’s pulled some cons of his own: in 1978, he scored an interview with classic Hollywood actor Hurd Hatfield by pretending to be a Film Comment reporter. Wendell, when you find the tape, please send it our way!  Better late than never.","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/bI_2iU8AwjxinzV-q0ji4Pt8uwI1EFv8xC6xgBwq6I4/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9iYzUz/ZjQ5ZWNmNzFjNjY1/NWNkZTBhZjdhMGU4/NzgzYS5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}