Billy Liar

Today in Summer Under the Stars is a day devoted to British actor Tom Courtenay. As it turns out, I've got one of his movies on my DVR from the previous time TCM aired it, so I decided now would be a good time to watch it so that I could write a post on it for the upcoming airing. That movie is Billy Liar, which kicks off prime time at 8:00 PM.

The scene is one of those northern towns, where the housing stock is old and twentysomethings who aren't married are still forced to live with their parents becuase good luck finding a place to live on your own. Tom Courtenay plays young Billy Fisher, who lives in one such house together with not only his parents (Wilfred Pickles and Mona Washbourne), but his elderly and sickly grandmother (Ethel Griffies). Billy has a steady job, but one that's unexciting, working as a clerk for local funeral home director Shadrack.

It's the sort of life that one dreams of getting away from, and Billy has an active imagination that could be well-used to figure out how to escape such a humdrum life. Unfortunately, Billy uses that imagination in the wrong way. He has some sort of made-up country called Ambrosia that you could imagine somebody writing a book about, but instead, Billy fantasizes about being the leader of Ambrosia. He claims that he's writing a book, but that's all just nonsense. Worse for him is that he lies to everyone around him about all sorts of things, such as the idea that he's going to get a job writing comedy for a comedian who's made good and is about to visit town, Danny Boon.

While these lies are bad, there are other lies that are worse because some are immoral and others actively illegal. Billy has been stringing two different young ladies along, Rita and Barbara. You'd think that since everybody knows about Billy's propensity to lie and make stuff up and that he's pretty much a laughing stock for it, no self-respecting woman would want a man like Billy. But somehow, he's got multiple women interested in him, as a third, Liz (Julie Chrisite) comes back from London for a short stay.

As I implied above, there are lies that could get Billy in legal hot water. One of Billy's tasks at the funeral home was to send out all the promotional calendars to various would-be clients. However, Billy could never bring himself to do this, storing all of the calendars in an armoire in his bedroom while basically embezzling all the money that he was supposed to use on postage to send out all of these calendars. Shadrack is understandably miffed about it, and could certainly press charges against Billy although he seems to be a bit lenient in that he's only docking Billy's pay until Billy pays it off.

But then Liz is about to go back to London and Billy might just be able to escape his life. At the same time, however, Grandma is rushed to hospital and Billy's father is furious that Billy was out of the house when this happened. Will Billy be able to find happiness in life? Will he be able to satisfy the demands that society puts on normal working people?

Billy Liar is the sort of movie that I can see why some people really like. I didn't exactly dislike it, but I have to admit that I don't have as high an opinion as others. That's because of Courtenay's character. Not Courtenay's acting; he does a fine job. But the character is such an obnoxious liar that I found it hard to have any sympathy for Billy, which is a bit of a problem for a movie like this.

So Billy Liar is definitely a movie worth watching, albeit with some caveats.