Synopsis

Alan Conway is a con-man. A deluded con-man who at times, really thinks he is the famous American film director and producer Stanley Kubrick. Within the circles Conway works no-one it seems is even aware of what the acclaimed American looks like. Kubrick certainly doesn't look at all like Conway. It matters little for Conway is so convincing none of the people he dupes have a clue until it's too late. Conway is also careful about where he meets his intended victims and as a ploy chooses well heeled areas of London, always meeting his victims at the door of a residence that looks posh and befits a man of Kubrick's stature. All goes well until he meets a singer by the name of Lee Pratt. As Kubrick he promises to help Pratt break into the big-time in Las Vegas, The Entertainment Capital of the World. The jig is up when Pratt's manager discovers Kubrick hasn't made any calls to the USA.

What The Critics Say

"The true talent of these filmmakers is that they make us half fall in love with Conway for his sheer chutzpah (which could also be mistaken for rampant pathological lying!). So miraculously Malkovich's balding, effete man who looking nothing like the straight, bearded Kubrick becomes a character we grudgingly admire. Clever and genuinely funny." Nicola Harrison ABC NIGHTLIFE "Droll, entertaining and often outright funny, this offbeat story has instant appeal and I especially like the way it uses music to colour its unravelling. The theme from "2001 A Space Odyssey" blares boldly as Conway/Kubrick walks out of his front door." Louise Keller URBAN CINEFILE "Best appreciated as a rather amusing farce called 'The John Malkovich Show', the movie's every scene is anchored, then stolen, by the commanding thespian's Alan act. As sloppy with his tall tales as he is with booze, this flamboyantly aloof and morally care-free faker gets called out regularly for not actually knowing anything about Kubrick." Aaron Hillis PREMIERE MOVIE MAGAZINE "Based on a real conman's bizarre behaviour as an impostor, this film gives John Malkovich an acting workshop in which he can turn eccentricity into an artform, strutting and prancing and slithering his way through several fantasy characters, all on the precipice of madness." Andrew L Urban URBAN CINEFILE "To me, this film is a curiosity. I mean, I remember the reports coming in the newspapers about this guy in London who was posing as Stanley Kubrick. But the thing that I would love is for Stanley Kubrick to be alive now to see this film. Wouldn't that be fabulous? 3 1/2 STARS" Margaret Pomeranz ABC AT THE MOVIES

"We are brought into Alan’s world first by reputation only, as we encounter victims of his various undertakings stumbling around London in anger and desperation, searching for, if I may paraphrase, that “rotten fuck Stanley Kubrick wot owes us money!” After this sublime, hilarious buildup, we meet the man himself, played with great appetite by John Malkovich, devouring the juice this role oozes, and we become a silent companion in his cheesy masquerade." Marc Kandel E FILMCRITC "Best appreciated as a rather amusing farce called 'The John Malkovich Show', the movie's every scene is anchored, then stolen, by the commanding thespian's Alan act." Aaron Hillis PREMIERE MAGAZINE "The film is carried by the outrageous performance, dangerously near parody, turned in by Malkovich. He plays Conway/Kubrick as an alcoholic gay man fond of outrageous dress, preferring not to be seen without full make-up, including eye shadow and rouge." Des Partridge THE COURIER MAIL "People will believe anything for a brush with celebrity and even sophisticated Londoners were fooled into thinking a conman was a famous director, the late Stanley Kubrick, during the filming of "Eyes Wide Shut". John Malkovich, always one for curious casting, plays the conman who, though bearing no resemblance to the great man or even able to recount his incredible career, conned his way into London society." NineMSN MOVIE REVIEWS "Their film about this extremely colourful con-man could easily have been repetitive and dull but it isn’t thanks to the bravura performance of John Malkovich, an actor who has often tackled bizarre roles but never to the extent that he does here. Overall, "Colour Mr Kubrick" is a lot of fun, a clever portrait of a most unlikely criminal. 4 STARS" David Stratton ABC AT THE MOVIES

Inside John Malkovich "Colour Me Kubrick" is the tru....ish tale of British conman Alan Conway who ripped off his gulible victims by convincing them that he was famed film director Stanley Kunrick. His string of deceptions continued after his death in December 1999. In his will, Conway left £30,000 to a former friend, £5,000 to another man, and the rest of his money to his son Martin. The only problem was that Conway didn't have a penny. Martin discovered that the former friend, whom he assumes had mistaken Conway for Kubrick, was still owed £30,000 by his father and the will was just a jokey reference to the debt. Martin also revealed that he found unpaid bills in different names from Amex, Barclaycard and other companies, running into many thousands of pounds. There was an outstanding phone bill for £879.17, primarily from calling gay chat lines. After seeing "Colour Me Kubrick", even if it is only half tru....ish, Alan Conway, deluded or not can best be described as a colourful, cheeky rogue. In "Colour Me Kubrick" he played with delicious fervour by critically aclaimed actor John Malkovich, who says of his character, "His life is his art, he’s not cute, sweet, no mystique, he’s glamorous." Of course in real life Malkovich is nothing like the character he portrays on the big screen. Born John Gavin in Christopher, Illinois on December 9th 1953, the son of Dan and Jo Ann Malkovich attended Eastern Illinois University and Illinois State University before joining the Steppenwolf Theatre in 1976 (a then two-year-old company co-founded by his friend Gary Sinise). With the basement of a Chicago suburb church as their stage, Steppenwolf quickly gained national notoriety as a venue of intense, provocative theater. On the strength of his work with the company, in particular a production of Sam Shepard’s play "True West" for which he won an Obie in 1983, Malkovich landed a role as Biff, son to Dustin Hoffman’s Willie Loman in the 1984 Broadway revival of "Death of a Salesman". The show’s widespread success and subsequent award-winning release on television sprung his film career wide open. His performance as Mr Will, a blind southerner in the 9184 film "Places in the Heart" earned him an Academy Award nomination. He then traveled to Thailand to play Al Rockoff in the Oscar-winning 1984 film, "The Killing Fields". In 1987 he appeared in three films including co-starring with Joanne Woodward in the film version of Tennessee Williams, "The Glass Menagerie", (which by the way was directed by Paul Newman, the voice of Doc Hudson in Pixar Studio's "Cars"), and the Steven Spielberg film "Empire of the Sun" in which he co-starred with Christian Bale ("Batman Begins") and Miranda Richardson ("Wah-Wah"). His next roleproved to be a career defining one. Stephen Frears’ 1988 film "Dangerous Liasons" would unleash the talent that is John Malkovich. Since then he has starred alongside some of the big names in film including Clint Eastwood, Willem Dafoe, Melanie Griffith, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Connelly, Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, Gérard Depardieu, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ray Winstone, Uma Thurman, Johnny Depp and Glenn Close. Some of the films Malkovich has appeared in include "Places in the Heart", "In The Line Of Fire", "Of Mice and Men", "Being John Malkovich", "Shadow Of The Vampire" and "Johnny English". Entertaining as he has been, Malkovick's talents have received little reward when it comes to major awards, although I suspect that it wouldn't trouble him at all. Besides an OBIE Award for "True West" 1983, Malkovich has received an EMMY Award for the telemovie "Death of a Salesman" and a second OBIE Award for his directing of "Balm in Gilead". Malkovich one said "I still don't know if I made the right decision when I went into acting. I have driven school buses, sold egg rolls and painted houses, and I have often wondered what my life would have been like if I hadn't gone into acting. Mind you, it's a great life, going around pretending you're other people and getting paid ridiculous sums of money for it." Many cinemagoers would say cinema is richer for the talents of John Malkovich and that he certainly made the right decision. Inside Alan Conway The director of 2001: A Space Odyssey had long ago left behind the world of fame, but celebrity abhors a vacuum. If Kubrick did not want to exist in public, then somebody had to invent him. The reason Conway's invention proved so successful had little to do with his powers of mimicry but much to do with his victims' weakness of vanity. People believed Conway was Kubrick because they wanted to believe one of the planet's most secretive men had decided to reveal himself to them. 'I really did believe I was Stanley Kubrick,' Conway admitted. 'I could have carried on until the day I died.' Or, he might have added, until Kubrick died. Conway was born Eddie Alan Jablowsky in 1934. He told friends, in later years, that he was a Polish Jew who had escaped Nazi occupation. In fact, he was born in Whitechapel. Conway, with his wife built a travel agency with offices in Harrow, Muswell Hill and London's West End. Things started to go wrong in the late Eighties, when Conway left his wife for his gay lover, who was to die later of Aids. The business collapsed, he became an alcoholic and started to indulge his fantasies. He got to the stage where he couldn't distinguish fact from fantasy and started to believe he really was Stanley Kubrick. 'He used to answer the phone in this terrible American accent,' recalls his son Martin. 'And his friends used to call him "Stanley".'
While he was in summer season in Torquay, Joe Longthorne met Conway, or rather a man he took to be Kubrick. Longthorne does not want to talk about the episode but his agent told Guardian Unlimited reporter Andrew Anthony, the singer thought the director was 'going to make him a star'. Joe treated him like a king. He laid on a Roller for him and put him up in a top hotel. The guy told Joe he was going to put him in his next film'. Frank Rich, the former 'Butcher of Broadway' and his friends invited a drunk Conway to join them at their table in Joe Allen's restaurant. Conway was with Sir Fergus and a couple of young men who caused the Americans to suspect the three-times married Kubrick was homosexual. 'Everyone always thought Hal the computer acted like a jealous gay lover,' Rich observed. Conway had plenty of gall and plenty of guts. He once went backstage at the Covent Gardens Theatre and told Julie Walters and Patricia Hayes he was considering using them in a film. Others who thought they had befriended the world's most reclusive 'auteur' included the former Tory MP Sir Fergus Montgomery and the light-entertainment vocalist Joe Longthorne. Conway died from cardiac thrombosis on December 5th 1999. A short while after Conway died, his son returned to the flat and heard an answerphone message. 'Hi Stanley,' said a threatening voice. 'I'm going to get you this time. I'm going to get you.' The truth is, though, nobody ever really got 'Stanley'. © 2006 & with thanks to Guardian Unlimited
"Colour Me Kubrick" is based on real events, and the people who made the film, director Brian Cook and writer Anthony Frewin, know what they’re talking about. Frewin worked on the script of "2001", and was Kubrick’s research assistant on several projects, while Cook was assistant director on "Barry Lyndon", "The Shining" and "Eyes Wide Shut". Frewin actually did take calls from outraged members of the public whom Conway, posing as Kubrick, had swindled. The Verdict "He's a superstar but how many recognize the fact? Many more will after seeing John Malkovich in the grandest of his performances so far as Alan Conway, a British conman who relieved people of their cash and hospitality by pretending to be famed film director Stanley Kubrick. Conway looked nothing like Kubrick and neither does Malkovich, but who cares. Certainly not the audience! They will be keenly waiting for Conway to come undone. Until he does, they can sit back and watch an enthralling, highly camp performance by John Malkivich, the energetic star of "Colour Me Kubrick". Very recommended. 4 STARS" Cast & Crew Bytes "COLOUR ME KUBRICK" stars .......
Village Voice OBIE Award winner & EMMY Award winner John Malkovich ["Rounders", "The Ladies Room, "Joan of Arc", "Knockaround Guys" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"]; Jim Davidson O.B.E ["A Zed & Two Noughts", "Sinderella Live" and "Sinderella Comes Again"]; Luke Malby ["28 Days Later", "The Prince & Me" and "Spirit Trap"]; John Leyton ["The Great Escape", "Von Ryan's Express" and "Dangerous Davies - The Last Detective"], Ayesha Dharker ["City of Joy", "The Terrorist", "Star Wars Episode 2" and "Anita and Me"] and Leslie Phillips ["Not Now Darling", "Not Now, Comrade", "Out of Africa", "The Jackal" and "Saving Grace"] as Freddie.
"COLOUR ME KUBRICK" was .......
directed by Brian W.. Cook ["Last Action Hero", "Eyes Wide Shut", "The Pledge" and "The Piano Player"]; story and screenplay by Anthony Frewin ["2001: A Space Odyssey", "A Clockwork Orange", "The Shining" and "Full Metal Jacket"]; production design by Crispian Sallis [Set Decorator on: "Top Secret!", "Driving Miss Daisy", "Gladiator" and "Hannibal"]; cinematography by Howard Atherton ["Fatal Attraction", "Bad Boys", "Lolita" and "Lassie"]; original music by Bryan Adams ["The Three Musketeers" and "Racing Stripes"] casting by Gail Stevens ["Calendar Girls", "The Prince & Me", "Millions", "Kinky Boots" and "The Chronicles of Narnia"] and produced by Brian W Cook and Michael Fitzgerald ["Under The Volcanoe", "Mr Johnson", "The Pledge" and "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"]. Run Time 83 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2006 - Colour Me K Productions Ltd & Europacorp SA - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2006 - Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved