United Kingdom
1963
93 minutes
Black and White
2.35:1
English
121
Tom Courtenay gives a flawlessly nuanced performance as Billy Fisher, the underachieving undertaker’s assistant whose constant daydreams and truth-deficient stories earn him the nickname “Billy Liar.” Julie Christie is the handbag-swinging charmer whose free spirit just might inspire Billy to finally move out of his parents’ house. Deftly veering from gritty realism to flamboyant fantasy, Billy Liar is a dazzling and uproarious classic.
| Billy Fisher | Tom Courtenay |
| Liz | Julie Christie |
| Geoffrey Fisher | Wilfred Pickles |
| Alice Fisher | Mona Washbourne |
| Florence | Ethel Griffies |
| Councilor Duxbury | Finlay Currie |
| Shadrack | Leonard Rossiter |
| Barbara | Helen Fraser |
| Rita | Gwendolyn Watts |
| Director | John Schlesinger |
| Producer | Joseph Janni |
| Screenplay | Keith Waterhouse |
| Cinematography | Willis Hall and Denys Coop |
| Based on the novel by | Keith Waterhouse |
| And on the play by | Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall |
| Music | Richard Rodney Bennett |
| Conducted by | John Hollingeworth |
| Art director | Ray Simm |
| Editing | Roger Cherrill |
When I first encountered Billy Liar in the early 1970s, I’d never heard of it. I’d somehow acquired a 16mm panned-and-scanned print, and was intrigued by both the title and cast. I certainly knew who Julie Christie was, and I vaguely remembered Tom Courtenay in The Loneliness...
British cinema in the early 1960’s pulsed with the ambitious energy, on the screen and off, of young men—not angry, necessarily, but certainly restless. The period’s defining screen performances include Laurence Harvey in Room at the Top, Albert Finney in Saturday...
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