Having seen and enjoyed "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," the 1947 movie that starred Danny Kaye, I was expecting to enjoy this 1963 British film. But I found nothing to compare favorably in "Billy Liar." Mitty's daydreams were escapist and recharging. Billy's fantasies were purging and led to lies, deceit and delusion.Mitty's daydreams were funny and had an uplifting sense. When he returned to reality, his spirits were lifted from his experience and he seemed genuinely to adjust better with all around him. But Liar's fantasies are outside the realm of daydreams. They begin with shattering or destroying everyone and everything about him that he doesn't like. Maybe one scene of himself as a soldier or gangster machine-gunning his family might evoke a laugh for its ridiculousness. But after that, the repeated entrances into his fantasies with violence to gain his "freedom" turn quickly to pathos.When he returns from each departure, Billy is not happy to be back. In subsequent scenes he seems to become more and more frustrated. His inability to deal with ordinary things from day to day seem to overwhelm him. He is a sick dude, completely self-centered and self-absorbed.Billy can't stand his life, yet is unable to make serious efforts to change it, and can't fit into it comfortably or sanely. He seems to be something of a sociopath. I just didn't see the humor in this – not in this script.I think there was potential for considerable comedy and humor in this story. But not as it is written and played. There might have been some very good laughs in Billy being engaged to two girls at the same time. But the scenes of his trying to get the engagement ring from one to the other are flat and humorless. Instead, we have two young girls who are hurt by his lie.I kept watching and waiting for this film to get better. At about two-thirds of the way through, it had become so disconnected and boring that I turned it off. I had lost interest even in seeing how it finally played out. From the reviews I've read, I see that it followed its moribund plot to the end.I give this film three stars just for the actors who showed up, especially the supporting cast. They did a decent job with a lousy script and a lousier plot. Even Tom Courtney couldn't raise this tiring script to mediocre. I enjoy British humor and wit as brought to the screen over the decades by Alistair Sim, Alec Guinness, John Cleese, Eric Blore, Leslie Howard, Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Geoffrey Palmer, Michael Caine, Hugh Grant, Rupert Everett, Stephen Fry and others. But it's a real stretch to label this film a comedy. The best words to describe it would be a fantasy downer (or downer fantasy).Supposedly, novelist and playwright Keith Waterhouse wrote some of his youthful experiences into his stories. But one can surmise that Billy Liar's destiny belies that of Waterhouse, who created his character. Waterhouse lived to age 80 and had a very successful career as a novelist, columnist and playwright.

"Billy Liar" unlike other British kitchen-sink dramas of the period, uses black humour and fantasy to put across its themes of thwarted ambition, the generation gap and revolt against conformity, with Tom Courteney, in the title role, superbly personifying if not teenage rebellion at least some sort of youthful angst as he strains to escape the confines of his stodgy, niggling, family, his literally dead-end job and last but not least his lack of a love-life.The device of Billy's "daydream-believing" of course dates back to James Thurber's Walter Mitty, only transplanted to the grim north of Britain with our (anti)-hero retreating to his make-believe world of Ambrosia where he fulfils every head of state and army chief position to boot. The contrast with his day-job of being a clerk in a funeral director's business is obvious leading him to contemplate a migration to London egged on by the free-spirited Julie Christie, as natural and pretty here as she ever was, leading to the brilliant anti-climax of the inverted "Brief Encounter" ending.John Schlesinger's direction rises to the imaginative requirements of Billy's thought-processes, but equally knows when to employ quirkiness (the episode of the missing calendars) pathos, notably at the final scene and also during the scenes when Billy's bickering grandmother unexpectedly dies and of course humour. The cast is excellent, in particular Rodney Bewes readying his future "Likely Lad" persona as Billy's mate at the undertaker's and Leonard Rossiter, perhaps underused as Billy's phlegmatic, pedantic boss. But it's Courteney who essentially steals the show making it easy for us to identify with his character as we get inside his head and relate to his worm's eye view of the world only to share his final defeat as he retreats from his dream of escape to familial duty abandoning Julie Christie (whose knowing expression on the train as she in fact leaves him behind is superbly conveyed).Silly Billy, if you ask me.

There's not much plot to Billy Liar, but Keith Waterhouse in writing the original novel and John Schlesinger in making the film were obviously paying homage to that most beloved of American fictional characters, Walter Mitty. Tom Courtenay who got a breakthrough career role in the title part is nothing less than a British version of James Thurber's eternal dreamer.Courtenay plays William Terrence Fisher nicknamed Billy Liar for all the fantastic tales he spins. He's got a dead end job working in a funeral parlor and he fills his days by imagining himself the king of the mythical country of Ambrosia. But he's full of plans and in the course of spinning his stories he gets himself to two girls, Gwendolyn Watts and Helen Fraser, while really loving Julie Christie. Christie is the only one who can pull him into some kind of reality.The young man is also driving his poor middle class parents Wilfred Pickles and Mona Washborne to distraction. They've got enough on their hands with Ethel Griffies who is Courtenay's grandmother and lives with them, bringing along all her attendant problems of old age.Both Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie received their first notice in Billy Liar and certainly both have gone on to distinguished careers. The location shooting in various places in Yorkshire certainly give it a nice authentic ring that even a Yank like myself can appreciate.As there's no real plot, there's no real ending to the story and it does leave you wondering if young Courtenay is ever going to have a reality check. That open ending also probably made it possible for the BBC to make it a television comedy which until researching for this review, I hadn't known they had. I don't think the BBC show ever made it to this side of the pond.After over 45 years Billy Liar still holds up quite well because dreams and their dreamers will always be with us.

Billy Liar is played wonderfully by Sir Tom Courtenay. Other cast members include Mona Washbourne, Leonard Rossiter, Julie Christie (who isn't a Dame) and Anna Wing. The story about a Northern British young man in Yorkshire who dreams about being king in a foreign land is quite understandable. Billy wants to escape his dreary existence from his parents and the small village in which he lives in. Mona Washbourne plays his mother. He has a great imagination but only if he could put it to use. He dreams of running away to start fresh but he's plagued by doubts, fears, and frightening of what might lie ahead. Julie Christie plays the girl that is going to London. The question is if he will join her too on this journey to a big city.