“Billy Liar”, from 1963, stars Tom Courtney, Julie Christie, Wilfred Pickles and Leonard Rossiter. The director was John Schlesinger.
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Billy lives up north in England with his parents and grandmother. It’s a grim, grey post-war world with no glimpse of the sixties. Billy wants to leave, and lives in a dreamworld, rather as Walter Mitty does.
Billy is in all kinds of trouble, at work, with engagements to two girls and with his family.
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The film depicts the north, well Bradford, as a dismal place. By any standards, Billy wanting to leave is understandable. And when he re-connects with Liz who is a free spirit, there’s opportunity no-one could resist.