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. —The Criterion Collection
Schlesinger was born in London into a middle class Jewish family, the son of Winifred Henrietta (née Regensburg) and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician. After Uppingham School and graduating from Balliol College, Oxford, he worked as an actor.
One of his earliest films, the British Transport Films’ documentary Terminus (1960), gained a Venice Film Festival Gold Lion and a British Academy Award. His first two fiction movies, A Kind of Loving (1962) and Billy Liar (1963) were set in the North of England. A Kind of Loving won the Golden Bear award at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival in 1962.
His third Darling (1965) described tartly the modern urban way of life in London and was one of the first films about ‘swinging London’. Schlesinger’s next movie was Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s popular novel. Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969) was internationally acclaimed… read more
If there was to be a remake of this, I wonder if The Decemberists would do the score...
Fantastic film...after seeing this on TCM, I've decided that I'm going to have to start a search for the unfortunately OOP Criterion DVD.
NOW YOU SEE IT I love the fact that Britain's two women directors in the 1950s were called Toye and Box. I also love the fact that Britain
Billy Fisher’s choice at the end left me thinking two things. first, that in order to find happiness one not necessarily has to leave all behind, because after all, that is just a state of mind and… read review
John Schlesinger’s second feature film is one of the last, and best, of the British New Wave, featuring a never better Tom Courtenay as the titular dreamer, a northern lad who escapes the doldrums… read review
