Billy Liar (1963)

Directed by

John Schlesinger

Genre

comedy film, tragicomedy

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 38m

Rated

PG

Rating

6.8 of 10 from 126 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Billy Liar works at a funeral home and escapes his dull life by making up elaborate lies. He juggles relationships with three different women, including a free-spirited woman named Liz.

wistfulcomedicdaydreamygroundedbittersweetrestlessdeadpanmelancholic

What happens

Billy Liar is a 1963 British CinemaScope comedy-drama film based on the 1959 novel by Keith Waterhouse. Directed by John Schlesinger, it stars Tom Courtenay (who had understudied Albert Finney in the West End theatre adaptation of the novel) as Billy and Julie Christie as Liz, one of his three girlfriends. Mona Washbourne plays Mrs. Fisher and Wilfred Pickles plays Mr. Fisher. Rodney Bewes, Finlay Currie and Leonard Rossiter also feature. The Cinemascope photography is by Denys Coop and Richard Rodney Bennett supplied the score. The film belongs to the British New Wave, inspired by both the earlier kitchen sink realism movement and the French New Wave. Characteristic of the style is a documentary/cinéma vérité feel and the use of real locations (in this case, many in the city of Bradford in Yorkshire). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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