To mark the 50th anniversary of John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar (scripted by Keith Waterhouse from his own novel), a digitally restored edition of the film is released next week on DVD and Blu-ray. Dwarling, it’s wonderful. Not just the sorts of bits-and-bobs that augment any reissue – interviews with the film’s stars, Tom Courtenay and Helen Fraser, and with the latter-day filmmaker Richard Ayoade, whose debut feature Submarine was influenced strongly by Schlesinger’s picture. But Billy Liar itself has stood up spectacularly well.
It’s the director’s most assured work, and it includes Courtenay’s greatest performance. The young actor balances zestiness and frustration, levity and rage, and never soft-pedals his character’s more unsympathetic tendencies. For those unfamiliar with the film or novel, I should say that William Fisher (Courtenay) is a discontented undertaker bristling at his drab Yorkshire life and unimaginative elders, but doomed never to quite summon the guts to leave it all behind. He wants to be a comedy writer, and certainly has the spiky wit, but he’s on the outside of the showbusiness world, looking in; he resents his responsibilities but has somehow got himself involved with three women, the brightest of whom, Liz (Julie Christie), represents an escape route from his life that he may not be brave enough to take. Most of his energy is expended on cultivating a rich interior fantasy life, where he enjoys prestige, wealth and fame – but even this is shot through with rancour, satire and class resentment.
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