Billy Liar (film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Billy Liar is a 1963 film based on the novel by Keith Waterhouse. It was directed by John Schlesinger and 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 played 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 (or "kitchen sink drama") movement, inspired by the earlier French New Wave. Characteristic of the style is a documentary/cinéma vérité feel and the use of real locations (in this case the city of Bradford in Yorkshire). One sequence includes a very early use of a swear word ("pissed"), which was unusual by commercial film standards of the time; the word is uttered by Mona Washbourne.
In 2004 the magazine Total Film named Billy Liar the 12th in their list of the greatest British Films of all time.
Cast
- Tom Courtenay as William Terrence 'Billy' Fisher
- Wilfred Pickles as Geoffrey Fisher
- Mona Washbourne as Alice Fisher
- Ethel Griffies as Florence, Billy's grandmother
- Finlay Currie as Duxbury
- Gwendolyn Watts as Rita
- Helen Fraser as Barbara
- Julie Christie as Liz
- Leonard Rossiter as Emanuel Shadrack
- Rodney Bewes as Arthur Crabtree
