“Billy Liar”, from 1963, stars Tom Courtney, Julie Christie, Wilfred Pickles and Leonard Rossiter. The director was John Schlesinger.
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.
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.