Tom Courtenay delivers a star-making turn as William Terrence Fisher (‘Billy Liar’) in one of the most memorable and universally acclaimed films of the 60s.
Running from an unsympathetic working-class family, a pair of demanding fiancées and an insecure job at an undertakers, Billy escapes, Walter Mitty-like, into a world of fantasy where he can realize his dream ambitions. As work and family pressures build to new intolerable levels, Liz (an early, charismatic turn from Julie Christie), enters his drab life and offers Billy the one real chance he’ll ever get to leave the past behind.
Scripted by Keith Waterhouse from his own novel, and sensitively directed by John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy), Billy Liar is one of the few comedies of the British ‘New Wave’, marrying visual and verbal wit with a rather poignant rumination on the futility of dreams.
The newly restored version of Billy Liar will also screen as part of this year’s Bradford International Film Festival, hosted by Bradford UNESCO City of Film on Sunday 14 April.
David Wilson, Director of Bradford UNESCO City of Film said, ‘Billy Liar is a key component within Bradford's rich film heritage and formed part of our bid to become the world's first UNESCO City of Film. It is still an important reference within film studies and I am really pleased that the 50th Anniversary edition on DVD/ BLU-RAY will bring the film to whole new audience.'
On Saturday 13 April Tom Courtenay will also be the festival’s guest of honour where he will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. [more details can be found here]
• Remembering Billy Liar with Tom Courtenay and Helen Fraser
• Interview with Richard Ayoade
• A look through the Keith Waterhouse Archive with British Library Curator Zoe Wilcox
• Interview with Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley
• Stills Gallery
• Trailer
Pre-order/Buy Billy Liar 50th Anniversary Edition:DVD
/ Blu-ray
