Billy Liar (1963) User Reviews

Pants on Fire...

[Xstal · 8/10 · 26 February 2023]

Your trapped inside a home with aging parents (and a grandparent), in a town you'd really rather not frequent, working at the undertaker, you're the epitome of faker, although you have a little world where you're content. Now you've got yourself into a spot of bother, an engagement ring to two is what you've proffered, plus a stash of calendars, because of your malingerers, and the petty cash is short inside its coffers.

Never a dull moment in the life of Billy, as he perpetually puts himself into situations and scenarios that are all his own doing, with wonderful performances all round that still have an impact to this day.

nice and recognizable story - actual now and then

[veldman-heke · 8/10 · 28 January 2004]

I was a teenager when the film was made, and immediately recognized the pictures of cities in the 60's, the cars, streets, buildings, the interior of the houses. Even so the way people looked and talked. Beautiful. I never read the book but it seemed to me that Billies dreams were put on screen a bit overdone but therefore also very funny. Like small boys càn exaggerate, but Billy was not a small boy anymore, and therefore really a sad guy. His family had had it with him, quarrelling all the time, his boss and colleagues saw through him and everywhere his time was running out. That he had 2-3 girlfriends was a miracle. His lying promises did the trick. Time for a change, one would say ! The climax was the end of course. All of a sudden Liz got on his right side with messages of love and persuaded him onto the train to London. She was enthusiastic and dedicated to get with him out of her dull-after-war-life and gloomy city. The message of the movie is: grab your chances now or don't. In the 60's that was a coming up and everyday question for many of the young people (and still is !) and therefore very actual (then and now). I liked the movie and how the actors created their characters. Tom Courtenay did it with very much conviction. A splendid, for that time spirited, and very good looking Julie Christie as Liz the new-age young girl, with no ties or limitations (responsibility ?) whatsoever to withhold her from doing what she wanted to. We saw more of these girls in Holland soon after 1963. See the movie: you won't regret it I'm sure. Hans Veldman.

Stunning stuff on many levels--inventive editing, great photography, wonderful sense of place

[secondtake · 8/10 · 29 June 2017]

Billy Liar (1963)

Billed as a "gay" movie by TCM when they played this in 2017, and the basis for that is fair enough—director John Schlesinger was openly gay, and the feeling of this film is very much about being an outsider to a larger culture. Which in the early 1960s is what most gay men (and women) experienced.

Heads up—this is a very British film, and it's on the cusp of a new Britain, getting out from World War II burdens and about to see the Beatles take over the world. In short, Mod England is in full swing, and the surprising new actress Julie Christie is key here. Maybe I'm just a guy, but I think the charm and honest presence of Christie from the first glimpse in a lorry (truck for you Americans) is a spark of life that tips the movie over. Great stuff.

The star however is the title character, played by Tom Courtenay, whose real character name is Billy Fisher. He's terrific, playing a cad of sorts, someone who lives by effect, a former soldier (in his head) who has settled uncomfortably into his beloved England.

The pace is crisp and the fast cuts are unusual for the time. There are oddities—early on he plays blackface in one scene (in his imagination), a woman in another (also daydreaming). It's farce top to bottom, and raw comedy. I think the British laughed harder by far than us poor Americans, but it's a lark and a fancy through and through. The flavor of it reminds me of "A Hard Days Night" and in fact they both come out of the so called British New Cinema.

The film is imaginative in its structure, depending on the wandering thoughts of Billy to change the scene at will. It's cheeky but clever, and keeps you looking. And chuckling. As a comedy it might not be uproarious, but it never lets up its absurdity. It's called Billy Liar because Billy succeeds with his co-workers and family by making things up. Endlessly.

Eventually you have to ask if the film can be read as an insight into being a gay man in these times. Certainly it can. It cheerfully points out how painful it is to be misunderstood and maligned for no good reason. It was easy to understand Billy as a a would-be success pushed down by his willing non-conformity. But it is also troubling to admit that this is something that is insinuated by TCM at the start—if you see the movie as a straight movie about an eccentric (not gay in particular) it has a different and less serious feel.

Maybe it's fair to let it be both, or let it float depending on the viewer. Because it remains fast, inventive, and funny throughout. Even the camera-work is fun, with lots of wide angle and with moving pans across landscapes that distort the world. Appropriately.

The final verdict: this is a film about the new England, the land of youth poking fun at the serious old school England of lore (and of WWII). It attacks this with necessary humor (not to offend absolutely everyone) and with visual pizazz. It wears slightly thin at times, and you do wonder what really matters about this aimless chap, but in all it's refreshing and revealing of the era.

And it has Julie Christie in her first film. As she says with revealing authority, "I don't want to get engaged, I want to get married." Yeah.

Maturing like good wine (and no lie!)

[oldreekie546 · 23 May 2003]

Tragi-comic misadventures of a young man who invents a fantasy world as cover for his troubles and dreary middle-class existence in sixties Yorkshire.

Billy Liar was always a terrific film, but like so many of its kitchen-sink contemporaries (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Kind of Loving) it has actually grown in substance and depth since its release. Part of the reason is the extensive use of on-location filming all these movies utilised: a post-war industrial landscape long since lost and therefore all the more vivid in its posterity. But where Billy Liar gets a bigger march on its predecessors - whether by intent or accident - is that it captures this landscape on the cusp of the swinging sixties, when architecture, culture, leisure and morality were all rapidly changing. In doing so it heralds many of the themes and issues that were to dominate western culture for the remainder of the 20th Century: pop culture, advertising, media obsession, celebrity, race relations and fantasy lifestyles.

Billy seemed an endearing but essentially lost soul in his day; an immature weakling unable to face up to the realities and responsibilities of adulthood. But looked at from the hindsight of 40 years he now seems symptomatic of what is today regarded as normal, almost aspirational, behaviour: self-absorption; avoidance of responsibility; glorification of celebrity; escape culture.

Whether director John Schelsinger and writers Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall foresaw all the cultural and sociological changes they captured is something only they would know (they surely couldn't have seen the significance of casting Julie Christie - one of the ultimate swinging sixties icons). Whatever the case, what makes Billy Liar such a fascinating film is the casual, uncritical and unselfconscious way its many themes are observed. Its lack of preachiness or self-righteousness help keep it a fresh and funny entertainment that can be enjoyed at that level. Its historical importance as a perfect snapshot of a country at a time of rapid and fundamental change is nothing less than priceless.

incandescent performance from Julie Christie

[christopher-underwood · 6/10 · 28 April 2017]

Having seen Albert Finney on stage I didn't feel that Tom Courtney was as strong in the lead role for the film but in many ways this suits the part. No point in making the daydreaming loser too strong in personality, although the anomaly here is that he seems to have no difficulty attracting the ladies even if he is a bit soppy. Never as funny as the book, Schlesinger opens up the film and those facial gestures from the stage and subtle asides in the book are lost. As a movie capturing the times that were very much about to change it is brilliant. I loved the opening credits with the rows of semi-detached houses (because we are talking poor middle class here, not working class) and the shots of slum clearance. The tone is apt too and very theme, so central here, of 'going down to London' so much of the time just a few years before those swing sixties would burst everything apart. One last point, should anyone be wary of bothering with a British 'kitchen sink' drama, there is an early and completely incandescent performance from Julie Christie. She glows on screen and is particularly noticeable with the surrounding drabness and the usual stereotypical British girls on show. A sensational performance that set Christie up fora very decent career and parts in some very influential and important films, not least her next with the same director - Darling.

Heads the pack in Kitchen Sink terms...

[HenryHextonEsq · 9/10 · 15 June 2001]

"Billy Liar!" impressed me more than many other admirable British pictures of this era, like "Room at the Top", "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" and "This Sporting Life". It managed to generate a more tangible blend of poignancy and amusement. It's not often humour of the "laugh-out-loud" nature, more of the subtle, grim kind. The reality of Britain at that time is I suspect, very well conveyed here, with the old working-class, represented by Councillor Duxbury (astutely played by the fine Finlay Currie) and Billy's family, very much at odds with what they see as an ungrateful, decadent youth. All the performances hit the intended mark, with Leonard Rossiter typically Rossiter, almost as a younger Rigsby, without so much noticeable seediness. Julie Christie is as good as the role allows, an odd role, very much the "dream girl" of Billy and I dare say a good few others. The film expertly avoids sentimentalizing matters by its cunning, apposite last section. The Danny Boon character is, one suspects, all too typical of the TV light entertainer mould in reality. His reliance on cheap non-gags, smug guffaws and "audience banter" is well conveyed in just a few short scenes. It's interesting that Billy seems to aspire so much to write for him in particular... Helen Fraser's character Barbara is wonderfully quaint; a type long gone it seems. One can understand Billy's frustrations with his respectively prudish and plain (Barbara) and ignorant (Rita) girlfriends, and his anger at his family, although some sympathy is correctly reserved for them. The direction is very good by Schlesinger, emphasizing all the right things. The fine context-setting opening montage expertly draws in the viewer, and never at any stage henceforth is anyone's attention likely to wane. The film is most of all Tom Courtenay's; he gives a truly resonant performance, bringing to vivid life a character far removed from the norms of film making at the time. The fantasy sequences are finely done, and all add more deep impression of this character. His digressive tendencies, self-destructive habits, economy with the truth are well balanced by a sense of yearning and imagination. One cannot help but like and relate to the character, a creation that resoundingly rings true. His ambivalence to the class system comes across concisely, in particular. A fine film indeed, with so many of the smaller touches that many films miss. Witty, sad and a seminal film of the era, very much a crossroads in British history. Rating:- **** 1/2/*****

Good performances overcomes well worn themes.

[Pedro_H · 7/10 · 8 May 2003]

A north of England funeral clerk is bored with his life and builds a world of elaborate lies to compensate for it.

A classic of the English kitchen sink period, but it will not have full impact unless you are coming to it fresh and without prejudice. As someone that was forced to read the book several times at school I find the material and the morals worn thin - especially when it was later turned in to a TV series and then a musical!

(The reason why it is so popular is that is about the limits of (English) working class life and, and if you are working class yourself, you are supposed to be able to "relate to it." Other suchlike novels (and later films) include Kes (which is better), A Taste of Honey (which is far better) and the Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (which is even better still.)

Good portrait of grey working class life in the sixties (if you are at all interested) and a template for a million films and television series to come (all barbs, mini jokes and evasions over the family breakfast table). While Billy is not always likeable, the people around him seem to put up with him and give him a second, third and fourth chance. We are not really living in the world of heroes and villains.

If you live in a world of lies, you drown in a world of lies, but I knew that without seeing this film. A lot is also cribbed from the Secret Life of Walter Mittey - another film that didn't live up to the book.

Thankfully lead Tom Courtney's performance is first class, indeed I have never seem him get a bad notice in anything. Even today when he himself is the parent doing the "what time do you call this?"

(Check out "Let Him Have It" if you want to experience the above.)

While a good and watchable film with high production values, I recommend you read the Keith Waterhouse novel which paints the period between childhood and being an adult in detailed and believable colours.

A great film to become completely absorbed in.

[Eva Ionesco · 10/10 · 14 April 2000]

What makes this little black and white film so absorbing? As I was watching it on late-night TV, I found myself on the edge of my seat, gripping the arms of my chair, trying not to yell at the main character, Billy Fisher, near the end of the film. How absorbed can you be?

The dialogue, the acting, and the storyline was so realistic and natural that I had completely forgotten that I was watching a film. Years later on the next viewing I had thought it wouldn't suck me in again, especially since I knew the ending, but I was wrong. In fact I was able to appreciate it all the more on the second viewing.

Tom Courtenay plays Billy Fisher, who is an immature, irresponsible young man living in a Walter Mitty-ish fantasy world, and invents implausible stories to attempt to hide his escapades, but his lies keep backfiring on him.

His life is rapidly falling apart. He is supposed to mail out calendars from his employers to their clients, but he doesn't mail them, and keeps the postage money. He even manages to con two girls into becoming engaged to him, and that explodes into a catfight over him when they find out. His grandmother is dying, his father is continually angry at him, and everything he does just makes matters worse.

Fortunately, he meets Liz, (played by Julie Christie, who is the best thing in this great movie). She is sweet, beautiful, and understands him completely because of her own need to escape, which she does by travelling around the country.

He has the opportunity to get away from all the trouble he's in and go to London, and make a fresh start with Liz who is so perfect for him. But can he change? Can he summon the courage to break free of the messy but secure life he knows and face the unknown? Will he recognise that Liz is the best thing that could ever happen to him?

I'm not going to tell you, because that would spoil the film, but, whichever way he decides, any film that has you on the edge of your seat, yelling "Go with her! Don't miss this opportunity! Go! Go!" you know it's a truly wonderful and realistic film!

Imaginative urban comedy/drama.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 22 September 2008]

When "Billy Liar" reached the screen in 1963 it was considered a little shocking, an innovative contribution to the British ashcan school of cinema, along with "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "Morgan", and a few others. The setting was always grimy and urban. The characters always working class. The conflicts were small and trivial to an outsider, and the treatment veered from comic to dramatic and back again, so that the audience was never quite certain about what was to come next or -- far more important -- how to feel about what they were watching. The characters were multi-dimensional, as characters are in life off the screen, and that's a compliment to the audience. People generally are not good or bad; they are good AND bad. Adults can make up their own minds about their responses, can't they?

This is a good example of the genre. Tom Courtenay is Billy Fisher. He works in an undertaker's establishment in some minor role -- mailing out annual calendars and so forth. He's juggling two women as well. One blond bimbo satisfies his physical needs while the virginal brunette offers him a future in which, with any luck, the wedded couple will live in a shabby flat in the same smoky industrial city and raise a couple of children who will grow up to be as unexceptional as they themselves are. The brunette wanders happily through a cemetery visualizing what THEIR plot will look like. This legerdemain confuses Courtenay, who doesn't care about his job anyway, and he begins to get into some mostly amusing hot water at work.

And so -- keeping two young women on the hook and in danger of being fired and not being particularly appreciated by his Mom and Dad at home -- Billy Fisher does what any sane person would do. He fantasizes. And we see clips of his fantasies unfold on screen.

Probably this was the most original feature of the movie -- the fantasies. There were no shimmering dissolves, no harp arpeggios, to let us know they were coming. Dad insults Billy and -- WHAM -- a cut to Billy firing machine-gun bullets into Dad. None are particularly amusing -- this isn't Walter Mitty -- but they're all kind of shocking. Of course, that kind of editing has been imitated a thousand times since then and we've grown accustomed to it, but it was imaginatively done by director Schlesinger, a genuine innovation. More extended fantasies show us Courtenay as dictator of his own nation -- Ambrosia.

Later in the film we get to know Julie Christie's character. She's a knockout, she sees through Billy's lies, and she wants to run away to London with him. At the last minute, when the couple are already seated on the train, Courtenay makes an excuse to leave for a moment and deliberately misses the train. The last we see of Julie Christie she is looking out the window of the departing coach in Courtenay's direction, her head cocked, smiling slightly, as if she'd expected him to abort the escape all along.

It's sad, in the end, despite the comic interludes. This is a story in which the system embodies a lifelong inertia, and the system wins. Courtenay will wind up with some wife who is full of bourgeois impulses, but then he was never very creative himself -- except for his daydreams.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a first step........................

[ianlouisiana · 10/10 · 4 November 2005]

Made at a time when the British Cinema was heavily under the influence of the French New Wave directors," Bily Liar" is a rather plaintive movie about a young man in the North of England,naif and not so clever as he thinks he is,who sees his future reflected in the life of his parents ,desperately wants to escape from what seems pre - ordained but lacks the courage to make an irrevocable step into the unknown. He lives his fantasies in the imaginary "Freedonia" but is unable to make the stuff of dreams reality.An aspirant comedy writer he is given a vague offer of possible work in London by a visiting comic but will he settle for the devil he knows rather than the devil he doesn't? Opening the film with the music from "Housewives' Choice" was a stroke of inspiration.The camera moves up along a street with net curtains and we enter Billy Fisher's home.Here lives one of the greatest tragi-comic creations of the 1960s novel.Blessed with loving but uncomprehending parents Billy has seen how the real world works and wants no truck with it. The radio and TV performer Mr Wilfred Pickles has the role of his life as Billy's father.A man of his time,Mr Fisher senior expects his son to be a chip off the old block in the respectable lower middle class northern manner.Instead he seems to have sired an alien being. Together with "A kind of loving" this film dragged the north kicking and screaming from its whippets and Woodbines era when it appeared to be a satellite of eastern Europe.You cannot imagine Billy Fisher in a cloth cap. Mr Tom Courtenay is superb as Billy,sly,blustering, yet at the same time funny and endearing. When Miss Julie Christie turns up to further complicate his love life Billy finally decides to make that train journey south. There is an agonising scene played out at the railway station before the incandescently beautiful Miss Christie,as brave and optimistic as Billy is weak and doubtful,leaves without him. Trapped by his inner doubts,Billy presumably drifts off into a life of safe mediocrity,choosing to live a year like a lamb rather than a week like a lion.And that is so sad.

An intriguing film; your mileage will vary

[erich-17 · 7/10 · 8 January 2001]

Billy escapes his nondescript existence by living in Ambrosia, a fantasy world of his own design. With his past tall tales and mistakes(petty white collar crime, two-timing, etc) all coming back to haunt him, Billy finds an escape route.

At first the English accents were difficult to comprehend, but eventually you get into the rhythm. The film is engaging throughout; there is very little wasted time, while also not feeling rushed.

*Spoiler alert* Like others, I was at first disappointed he did not get on the train at the end. What he does instead is stays and faces his problems, while still retaining his inner life and drawing strength from his fantasies. He also maintains the relationship with his family (as dysfunctional as it is) and understands that, as his mother says, they need him. He could have "escaped" to London, but this would have simply fed into his escapist mode of life, following Liz's method of leaving her problems behind. I'm not so sure he blows it by not getting on the train, and that's what gives this film lasting value for me.

There's a Billy Liar in each of us~~

[funang · 9/10 · 2 November 2002]

Most novels may not necessary translate well to the stage, let alone to the Big screen. 'Billy Liar' has achieved all that. I have just recently discovered this 'hidden' gem from among the throngs of DVD shelves. The reason I 'picked it up' was due largely to the director's name, John Schlesinger. Having seen his catapult to American fame 'Midnight Cowboy', I reckon why not check out his earlier British work. Boy was I astonished!

First of all, the script. The adapted screenplay by the original writers Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall is wickedly witty and performative for theatre dramatics, yet it crosses perfectly to the realms of cinema. The cut-aways to the lavishly staged dream sequences are so effective, so in contrast to the stark realism that we get from most of the on-location filming (from the DVD bonus features, the two writers actually take you on a present day 'tour' of a couple of the 'real'locations, juxtaposed with snippets of the film sequences at exactly the same spots).

Also commendable is the black and white cinematography by veteran Bristish lensman Denys Coop. Done in Cinemascope, the depth of Hinchcliffe Avenue can only be fully realised in the widescreen format, so avoid the re-formatted tv release at all costs!

And I must say the most amazing thing about the film is still the performance. Schlesinger rarely fails to bring out the best from his actors, and this seminal work is no exception. All the supporting cast, from 'Mr Shadrack ', Billy's family and girlfriends played very well to be the 'plastic reality' that's driving Billy insane. Hence, he seeks solance,affirmation and escape in his fantasies and lies, but ultimately we know which track he ends back on.

Tom Courtenay is simply 'Billy Liar'. Somehow, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Ewen Macgregor, or perhaps that's just me. It was mentioned that Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, who have both played the title character on stage, were considered for the the film role at the same time. I can't help but only wonder how it would've turned out if Finney got the part instead...

Last but not least, who can resist Julie Christie, aka Liz. She is Billy's object of desire cum temptation cum salvation, very much in contrast to Billy's inhabited world... simply beautiful. The intro sequence of Liz as she walks along the streets of Bradford is another highlight of the film, undescribable with words. You gotta see it for ya self~

What else can I say about 'Billy Liar'. I guess everyone was once a 'Billy Liar', or still has a Billy Liar in him or herself. Well, at least I can say it for me self. Perhaps on a finer day, I WILL CATCH thee TRAIN to 'London'.......

I give it 9/10 :-)

Fine interpretation in a flick about a lazy young man who escapes into fantasy world

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 3 February 2023]

An entertaining adaptation about a meek young man called Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) .He is an ambitious but slacker young who lives an unusual secret fantasy life. Henpecked by his fiancees and family (Wilfred Pickles, Mona Washbourne, Ethel Griffies) and being really questioned by his employer, Mr Shadrack (Leonard Rossiter) he flees his trouble life with dreams . He then flirts with a new cute girl (Julie Christie) , but the chaos continues when suffers the pangs of conscience and extreme imagination. As the young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant . One guy... three girls... one ring!

Poignant slices of English middle-class life are served expertly in this nicely performed story of a lazy young man who escapes dulling routine by retreating into fantasy . It contains parallels James Thurber's story ¨The secret life of Walter Mitty¨. This is an engaging and brooding story offering some intelligent vignettes of middle-class life with comedian touches. Based on Keith Waterhouse novel and play , scripted by Waterhouse himself and Willis Hall who also cowrote stage version. Stars Tom Courtenay giving a terrific acting as Billy Liar who's continuously chased by his two girlfriends , the sweet and virginal Barbara : Helen Fraser and the rough and ready Rita : Gwendolyn Watts. This agreeable comedy that holds your interest throughout, certainly is worth watch seeing for Julie Christie's brilliant, credible performance. The twenty minutes Julie Christie is on-screen are electric and worth movie. Support cast excels with stunning British actors , such as : Finlay Currie , George Innes, Mona Washbourne, Wilfred Pickles , Ethel Griffies and the always great Leinard Rossiter.

It displays evocative cinematography in black and white and CinemaScope by cameraman Denys Coop . The motion picture was well directed by John Schelsinger , at the time one of the main creators of the British Free Cinema . His first one was a 1960 documentary, Terminus (1961), which was sponsored by British-Transport, won him a British Academy Award and the Gold Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He made the transition to feature films in 1962, with the "kitchen sink" drama A kind of loving (1962), which got him noticed on both sides of the Atlantic. His next film, the Northern comedy Billy, liar (1963), was a success and began his association with actress Julie Christie, who had a memorable turn in the film. Christie won the Best Actress Academy Award and international superstardom and Schlesinger his first Oscar nomination as Best Director with his next film, the watershed Darling (1965), which dissected Swinging London. Subsequently, Schlesinger and Christie collaborated on Far from the madding crowd (1967), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel, in 1967. The movie was not a success with critics or at the box office at the time, though its stature has grown over time. Schelinger was a drama's (Far from the madding crowd , Day of Locust, Yanks, Midnight cowboy) expert and suspense (Believers , eye for eye , The innocents , Falcon and snowman) movies. Rating : 6.5/10.

Moments of joy interspersed with those now-moldy kitchen-sink dramatics...

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 25 January 2008]

UK production stars Tom Courtenay in a colorless performance as a member of the British working class who daydreams his way out of the monotony of life; Julie Christie is thoroughly charming as a local girl whose life really is a fairy tale. Adaptation of Keith Waterhouse's novel (which he co-wrote along with Willis Hall, having originally turned the material into a play), this mixture of stuck-in-a-rut reality with flights-of-fancy never quite finds its cinematic niche. The deceptively simple, 'non-flashy' flashy technique used by director John Schlesinger and his editor was quite fashionable for its time-- and consequently very popular abroad--but the picture tends to flag whenever the scenario is purposefully drab (or whenever Christie is not on-screen). Courtenay just isn't interesting enough as a personality to carry this callow conceit, although he gets good support from Finlay Currie and Wilford Pickles. Six BAFTA nominations with no wins. ** from ****

Highly recommended early Schlesinger film

[doktor d · 13 March 1999]

Billy Liar

John Schlesinger's excellent British comedy-drama concerns Billy (Tom Courtenay), a middle class young man who despises his position as a funeral parlor bookkeeper. Billy spends the majority of his time daydreaming of a much more interesting life filled with conquests, esp. of women. He'd love to quit his dead-end job and become a writer, but when the opportunity arrives, is he too content living in his head and telling lies to embellish his otherwise mundane existence? Too afraid to realize his dreams? This quirky slice-of-life is thematically similar to Le Distrait (The Daydreamer), a 1975 French release with an entirely different conclusion. A young, glowing Julie Christie appears briefly in Billy Liar, injecting color, life, and hope into Billy's dreary, black and white existence. Highly recommended. -- David Ross Smith

This is supposed to be funny?

[preppy-3 · 6/10 · 16 January 2001]

I didn't laugh much. It's a pretty sad tale about a young man (Tom Courtenay) in a dead end job with an unhappy home life who lies and constantly escapes into a fantasy world. I got most of the jokes (sometimes the English accents are hard to understand), but they just weren't very funny. Also the satire of the business world was pretty dated. It is worth seeing for beautiful black & white photography (you have to see it letter-boxed or on a big screen--there's no other way), good acting and directing and a marvelous performance by Julie Christie. When she was on screen that movie zoomed to life. She's so young and beautiful and full of spunk--too bad she's only in the last section. So, worth seeing, but no masterpiece.

Amazing acting by Tom Courtenay; a British classic

[audiemurph · 9/10 · 27 April 2012]

Featuring an extraordinary acting performance by Tom Courtenay, "Billy Liar" starts off as a farce. Courtney's Billy lives in a fantasy world, or a fantasy country, where he is the dictator, passing back and forth between a Churchill-like autocrat who inspires his people with magnificent Churchill-type speeches to a Hitler-esque fascist. The fantasies are played out in real flesh and blood for us, and they are quite striking, and occasionally hilariously absurd; an imaginary series of regiments parades before Billy, including one in which all the members have lost their right arms. Billy imagines himself leading each regiment, including a corps from India, make-up included.

Billy also repeatedly turns on his perceived real-life enemies with a fantasy machine gun – quite shocking, and probably not do-able today. He also has a job in a funeral home, of all places, but never seems to do any work. The humor is a little dark, like an Evelyn Waugh novel. But like I said, the first half hour is primarily farce.

The genius of the movie, however, is that Billy grows more complex as the film moves along. Billy has somehow gotten himself engaged to two different girls, neither of whom he intends to marry, and bizarrely keeps running into both of them. As he increasingly gets more caught in his own various webs of deceit, Courtenay's Billy begins to crack, and as we see how emotionally vulnerable he really is, he becomes much more sympathetic. Courtenay is masterful, as he seeks to keep hold of his fantasies and juggle his many lies, without getting trapped and caught – and it doesn't always work. Courtenay's genius is that he so effortlessly moves back and forth between weakness and manipulation, and we actually become more fond of him as the film progresses.

Some Northern British city itself is the co-star here, shot in glorious post-war black and white. One particularly interesting scene takes place in a dance club. All the locals have gathered to dance to such dreary crap as a song called "Twisteralla" (I am not sure it was not a parody of typical music of 1963), and forming a conga-line at one point. To think, this took place perhaps just months before the Beatles exploded on the scene; to me, it is a snapshot of how distressing the music and club world was before the British Invasion (yes, I know the British did not invade their own country).

All the supporting cast are spectacular, from the old grandmother who doesn't understand why there are so many "Blackies" in town, to the two girlfriends, one an obnoxious bully, the other an annoying prude, to Billy's ever irritated father, who at one point calls Billy a "Mary-Anne" - oh dear!

A particularly funny moment occurs when Courtenay has asked one of his girlfriends to go for a walk. The camera suddenly is pointing up into the trees, and we hear the girlfriend Barbara exclaim off-camera something like "oh it is so beautiful here!"; then, as the camera pans down, we see they are walking in a gorgeous but ancient cemetery. Really clever.

A great film, and keep your eyes closely on Courtenay. Oh, and to really appreciate Courtenay, watch the film he made after this one, "King and Country". Tom's character, a dim-witted soldier on trial for his life, could not be more different than Billy, and shows what an extraordinary actor he is.

Hasn't aged well

[ian_harris · 6/10 · 5 August 2003]

I was really looking forward to this - I read Billy Liar as a child and found the character endearing then. Perhaps even then Billy Liar would have worked better for me on the page than on the screen. I found this movie disappointing.

No complaints regarding cast - Tom Courtenay is always great value, Julie Christie is simply adorable, Leonard Rossiter one of the UK's great character actor / comedians.

Perhaps it is just that this style of British film making hasn't aged well, but I found the movie slow, unfunny and unconvincing. I know it is hailed as a British film classic, but it simply didn't work for me. Aficionados of British movies should see this film to form their own view. But those who simply want to discover the world of Billy Liar are better off with their noses in the book, in my view.

A brilliant comedy that may tear your heart out

[jai-38 · 10/10 · 17 January 2007]

Billy's like a lot of us. In Tom Courtenay's career best performance he plays a man/boy of special talent and very ordinary limitations. In the tradition of the "angry young man" mindset prevalent in '6os British drama, the movie, in its involvingly naturalistic rhythms, goes beyond those limitations and is a genuinely smart and fun portrayal of someone who will never be what he could be. Its fantasy sequences are deservedly heralded but it's even better in its odd, small moments -- Billy playing blind with his buddy crossing a street, dictating his future plans into his boss' tape recorder, burying his head in his hands as a tune he actually wrote plays at a local dance; Billy is forced by circumstance, and his own shortcomings, to live a life he knows he's going to escape -- and won't. And Julie Christie is not only the girl every guy will fall in love with but she's also the one who proves to be Billy's impossible dream -- the twist is, she's heartbreakingly real -- she's right there and instead... Billy goes for the fantasy. Awful and real. Director John Schhlesniger's best; beautifully shot in black and white and scored with offbeat songs and music. It stays with you.

A crippling mis-casting

[trimmerb1234 · 6/10 · 11 June 2016]

Billy Liar is a fantasist, someone whose daydreams merge with and overtake reality. He is though surrounded by the entirely down to earth: his situation, his immediate family and his boss. The comedy entirely relies on the audience finding Billy with his fantasies, likable and winning, and indulging him in a way those on screen find understandably difficult or impossible.

Billy, in the stage version was played by the robust, virile and extrovert Albert Finney, whose likable cock-sure persona was established in "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning". It is was surely just a small tweak to make him a likable but infuriating fantasist and credible love interest, Billy.

Tom Courtenay though a very fine actor, far more subtle than Albert Finney, is given to appearing introverted, inward, secretive even sly. These are not at all attractive qualities especially in a fantasist. There is absolutely nothing about him attractive to women, he is a conventional older stay-at-home son who the fashions of the day - indeed socialising contemporaries - pass by. There is little to make him and his fantasies likable, they appear like wilful unattractive private delusions rather than of a public, entertaining endearing (and amusing) kind. Director John Schlesinger chose instead of Finney who had played the part on stage, an entirely asexual-appearing Billy and coupled him with Julie Christie, the hottest British screen love-Goddess of the era, possibly of all time, as his love interest (and Courtenay as hers).

Billy, as portrayed by Finney, is a believable and not uncommon character. How many women have loved but found they could not live with such a character? It's a very very common story - the (young man) loving, full of enthusiasm and cheeky charm but prone to impractical dreams. How many mothers-in-law have believed their son-in-law to be so?

The story relies on two pillars: one, that we find Billy in fantasy mode, amusing and indulge this. Two, that his girlfriend is credibly attracted to him - why else should she stay around? It seems that director John Schlesinger's re-casting choice has knocked away both pillars. Tom Courtenay remains one of the finest actors but here was wrongly chosen.

The supporting cast though is rightly chosen, composed of some of the best most solid character actors of the day. Wilfred Pickles plays the infuriated father exactly as would have been at the time. I remember just such angry conversations.

"Billy Liar" is early vehicle for Julie Christie

[chuck-reilly · 8/10 · 21 March 2012]

Although Tom Courtenay is the star of "Billy Liar" and gives an outstanding performance as this British version of a "Walter Mitty-like" character, it's a very young Julie Christie who steals the show. Her part isn't large and her on-screen time is limited, but Christie's free-spirited carefree role changes the dynamics of the film and challenges Courtenay's Billy Fisher to do something with his life besides living in a complex fantasy world of his own making. Fisher is mainly concerned with his standing in Ambrosia, a make-believe European country where he resides as military hero, dictator and all-around super human being. He's forever leading the parade in this imaginative world as his real life passes him by. In reality, Fisher lives in a drab northern English city and employed as an undertaker's assistant. He's a notorious and habitual liar and under-achieving in every facet of his existence---except one. He has more than one fiancée and is constantly juggling his lies to keep them at arm's distance. In the hands of a less capable director, Fisher's "problems" wouldn't elicit anything more than a yawn and a cheap laugh. But the great John Schlesinger is able to present Billy's story with a bundle of humor tinged with a whiff of sympathy. He's really a lost soul but doesn't know it yet. The ambivalent ending can be taken two different ways depending on the viewer's opinion. The final scene where Christie leaves alone on the train to London stays with you long after the final reel is over.

"Billy Liar" was Tom Courtenay's second major success after "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" was released the previous year. He followed this role with a lead part in David Lean's epic "Doctor Zhivago." He's kept himself busy with stage and screen work to this day and he's now "Sir" Thomas Courtenay. For Julie Christie, all the doors opened up for her after "Billy" and she continued on to international success. Her next film, also with Schlesinger directing, was "Darling" for which she took home the Academy Award for Best Actress. But seeing her in this first major role is certainly a treat. It's easy to see why she became one of screen's all-time leading ladies. Actress debuts don't come any better than Julie Christie's in "Billy Liar." John Schlesinger's career took off after "Billy Liar" and "Darling." He's probably best remembered now for directing Dustin Hoffmann and Lawrence Olivier in the thriller "Marathon Man."

He's just a daydreamer...

[Lejink · 7/10 · 7 August 2013]

"Billy Liar" unlike other British kitchen-sink dramas of the period, uses black humour and fantasy to put across its themes of thwarted ambition, the generation gap and revolt against conformity, with Tom Courteney, in the title role, superbly personifying if not teenage rebellion at least some sort of youthful angst as he strains to escape the confines of his stodgy, niggling, family, his literally dead-end job and last but not least his lack of a love-life.

The device of Billy's "daydream-believing" of course dates back to James Thurber's Walter Mitty, only transplanted to the grim north of Britain with our (anti)-hero retreating to his make-believe world of Ambrosia where he fulfils every head of state and army chief position to boot. The contrast with his day-job of being a clerk in a funeral director's business is obvious leading him to contemplate a migration to London egged on by the free-spirited Julie Christie, as natural and pretty here as she ever was, leading to the brilliant anti-climax of the inverted "Brief Encounter" ending.

John Schlesinger's direction rises to the imaginative requirements of Billy's thought-processes, but equally knows when to employ quirkiness (the episode of the missing calendars) pathos, notably at the final scene and also during the scenes when Billy's bickering grandmother unexpectedly dies and of course humour. The cast is excellent, in particular Rodney Bewes readying his future "Likely Lad" persona as Billy's mate at the undertaker's and Leonard Rossiter, perhaps underused as Billy's phlegmatic, pedantic boss.

But it's Courteney who essentially steals the show making it easy for us to identify with his character as we get inside his head and relate to his worm's eye view of the world only to share his final defeat as he retreats from his dream of escape to familial duty abandoning Julie Christie (whose knowing expression on the train as she in fact leaves him behind is superbly conveyed).

Silly Billy, if you ask me.

Wonderfully weaves back and forth between Billy's vivid comical daydreams and his equally comical real life

[kijii · 9/10 · 22 November 2016]

At number 76 on the BFI's Top 100, this Criterion DVD is a gem with commentary by three then-living members of the original project: John Schlesinger, Tom Courtenay, and Julie Christie. Set in an industrial North-of-London location, it easily fits among the Kitchen Sink Realism films. In the DVD commentary, Courtenay says that, when released, the film was loved by the Italians and generally ignored by Americans as being an English black-and-white version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The similarity of the daydreaming-hero-of-his-own-imagination is an understandable connection between the two stories. However, this is a far superior as a film—and it is even better than James Thurber's short story--especially if you are able to understand the inside-jokes of the British humor, which we Americans surely didn't.

If, like me, you have only seen Tom Courtenay as the stoically determined and grime juvenile delinquent of Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, you will be pleasantly surprised by his wacky humorous side here. Also, even though Julie Christie only makes a brief appearance in this film, it may have represented a breakthrough role for the very successful career that she was to have, including three more joint ventures with John Schlesinger.

The title character, Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay), lives with his parents (Wilfred Pickles and Mona Washbourne) and grandmother (Ethel Griffies) in a boring North England town. He works as a low-level clerk at a funeral home and dreams of being a scriptwriter for a London radio comedian. Thinking that a polite form letter meant that he is hired as the scriptwriter, he is ready to quit his job and strike out on his own in London.

However, before leaving, he has a few things to take care of. He has to break up with BOTH of his fiancées—the no nonsense blond, Rita (Gwendolyn Watts), and the sweet and trusting brunet, Barbara (Helen Fraser). Also, he has to explain to his boss why he 'forgot' to send out the funeral parlor's annual calendars as well as what he did with the postage money that he was given to send them out.

Billy has a wild imagination and constantly daydreams about being the great leader, hero, inventor, business magnate…or whatever…of his imagined country of Ambrosia, a country where heroes are always losing their right limbs for some reason (?). BUT, in his real life, his job is a bore, his family is a drag, his friends know he is a liar and as he says to Barbara, 'You know I TEND to ex-a-ggerate a bit ..at times' (as he describes their future idyllic life together---with little Billy and little Barbara).

One of the many black humor moments of the film is the scene in which he takes Barbara on a quiet date to the cemetery where the two walk around and read the tombstones. He seems to be stuck, dreaming away his boring life, until a Liz (Julie Christie) comes bouncing into town and into his life. Her answers to his dilemmas seem surprisingly simple: 'Billy, if you want to go to London, GO to London.' When Billy asks her if she would like to be his fiancée, she says, 'No, I want to be your wife.' But, before Billy can go anywhere or do anything, he has to overcome his lifelong habits and inertia and make some sort of REAL move?

This film wonderfully weaves back and forth between Billy's vivid comical daydreams and his equally comical real life. Both are full of fun, imaginative creation, and roaring entertainment.

Interesting as a time capsule of early-1960s Britain, but weakened by its preachiness and well-worn generational conflict themes

[crculver · 6/10 · 27 July 2015]

Billy Liar is a 1963 British film that captures the monumental changes of the era: the sexual revolution and the destruction of England's old town centres in modernisation schemes. In Bradford, Yorkshire young Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) is working a soul-crushing job in a funeral home and suffering daily the derision of his elderly parents. His only escape from this drudgery is his active imagination, where he imagines himself leader of his own country and misleads other townspeople about his family's situation with little fibs. His propensity to make things up and shrug off his responsibilities, however, leads him to end up dating two women at the same time (Helen Fraser and Gwendolyn Watts), though ultimately he dreams of escaping with the liberated Liz (Julie Christie).

As a snapshot of Britain at a particular time, this is a valuable film. As background to Fisher's own personal struggles, the camera often shows wrecking balls smashing down the walls of old homes, and at one point a town councillor marks an entire swath of the city for demolition. A scene at a dance club captures the growing influence of rock 'n' roll on Britain. Old class tensions persisted, however, though American audiences might not entirely get this as it is often suggested only by characters' particular accents.

The overall message of the film is a letdown though, essentially saying that young people should give up their silly dreams and give in to their parents' demands. This moral lesson was entirely overturned by the youth revolution that erupted through the Sixties. As the UK saw full employment through that decade, young people could take the risk of following their dreams even if it meant a rupture with their families and hometowns. Nonetheless, the comedic approach in the film makes it entertaining almost throughout, and I'd recommend that anyone see it at least once.

Needed more to say

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 15 July 2020]

BILLY LIAR is another kitchen sink drama that didn't make much of an impact on me; the star's LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER seemed to have much more to say, whereas this feels like a mild satire. The main character is a Walter Mitty-style fantasist whose imaginings and flights of fancy get more than a little annoying before long, while the usual romantic interludes and family drama are strictly by rote.