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 of his life (boring job, boring fiancée, frustrating parents) with wild fabrications and daydreams. Based on the acclaimed novel and play by Keith Waterhouse, the film presents a variation on the Angry Young Man, stuck somewhere between the alienated boy of “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” and the already jaded and cynical rugby player of “This Sporting Life”, where our hero is still frustrated with his situation and lack of prospects, but on the verge of the culture change of the mid ’60’s, he’s no longer as hopeless as his predecessors. Audiences of the time were already tiring of the New Wave and were ready for The Beatles and James Bond, but Schlesinger’s film stands the test of time for its imagination, examination of a certain kind of lower middle class malaise, and if nothing else, for introducing the lovely Julie Christie, in the role of Billy’s free spirited dream girl, to film goers everywhere.