"Is it okay if I smell?" the Harvard senior asked his job interviewer over the phone, adding, "I haven't showered in two weeks."

The student filmmaker received special dispensation after explaining that his odor resulted from his research for a project.

Attempting to understand and gain the trust of Cambridge's homeless population for a documentary thesis film, Bradley K. Marshall '86-'87 lived down and out in the streets around Harvard Square.

For three weeks last June, he ate free meals from charity organizations, lived in abandoned buildings, and loitered on street corners. Marshall, who graduated in January, told the homeless people he met that he was "out," meaning out of luck and out on the street.

"I was often very confused--no sleep, no food, just walking around outside all the time. It's easy to lose touch with reality," Marshall says. Because of hunger and fatigue, he would often become disoriented and miss the free meals at St. Francis.

A vagrant named Peter invited Marshall to live with him and several other homeless people in an abandoned residential house, located a few blocks from Harvard Square. Most of Marshall's time each day was spent "walking and spacing out," as well as looking for his next meal.

The 23-year-old Berkeley, Calif. native says at the end of the first week he thought, "I know what this is like. I don't need to do it anymore."

"But sticking with it for three weeks--past the point where it was challenging and exciting, past the point where I wanted to stop--it felt much more like it was against my will," he says. "That powerless feeling of being homeless stayed with me."

During his time on the street, Marshall met and learned about Peter, Starchild and Bill, the three main protagonists in the student's recently completed 25-minute documentary film about the area's homeless, entitled "On The Street." Starchild is a leather-jacketed punk in his early twenties, who ran away from home when he was 14 years old. Peter is a schizophrenic. And Bill is an alcoholic who lives on the street with his wife.

On meeting Marshall, Peter told him that he had "wasted 63 million people" in another universe in order to save this one. At that point, Marshall says, he knew he wanted Peter in his film.

"On The Street" shows its subjects sleeping in abandoned houses, philosophizing over free meals, napping in the park and walking around the streets of Cambridge. Each of the characters are caught on film at moments that reveal their personalities and attitudes toward living on the street.

The film introduces Starchild strolling along Mass Ave singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" in a loud, defiant voice. In another vivid scene, Starchild is shown meticulously shaving his head with a straight razor, explaining that since he has no wife he has to do the job himself.

Peter, who has been on the street for several years, talks rapidly, but articulately about flying Egyptians and cities underground. When Marshall asks him on film why he does not want to have an apartment or job, Peter replies, "None of those questions are relevant to me."

"Peter's obviously crazy, he can't ever hold a job. But he functions very well in his own world and, to a lesser extent, in ours," Marshall says, adding, "I like him better than the average Harvard student."

Bill and his wife have been homeless for two years, and spend much of their time with their collected belongings on the benches in Cambridge Common. Bill says he hopes to leave the streets soon, and tells Marshall that when a man is his age, it would be nice to have a home to show for it.