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Billy Liar (Penguin Decades)

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Two other films made in West Yorkshire and worth a mention in this context are Brassed Off (1995), and Rita, Sue and Bob Too!

Billy Liar: my most overrated film | Most overrated films Billy Liar: my most overrated film | Most overrated films

This rebuilding work can possibly be seen in the background in the film, and having this in may well have been deliberate on the part of the filmmakers. Although this was not entirely new – see Philip Gillett’s book (References) – it was distinctive in having a more youthful edge and in taking a less passive perspective. Billy Liar' became an instant hit following its first publication in 1959 and has been adapted into a play, a musical, a TV series and even a film. However I don't think re-reading bears this out, it's not like Billy really cares about the job or the girl, and is dragged down to misery by forces beyond his control.Waterhouse observes all this with humor, not putting a foot wrong in making these encounters come alive with acute perception and sparkling writing. Barbara is prudish, always eating oranges, and harbours dreams of living with Billy in a cottage in Devon, with "little Billy and little Barbara".

BILLY LIAR ON LOCATION - LEEDS, BRADFORD | Yorkshire Film Archive BILLY LIAR ON LOCATION - LEEDS, BRADFORD | Yorkshire Film Archive

The classic comedy of a 50s youth trapped inside a Walter Mitty fantasy-world, Billy Liar was published in 1959, and captures brilliantly the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town. The older people in the book are for the most part unsatisfied and consumed with drudgery and dullness.On the pretext of going to get some milk from a platform vending machine, he scuttles off, then pretends to be vexed at missing the train, but is secretly relieved and marches back to his sad little house, the Ambrosian army tramping along visibly behind him.

Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse | Goodreads

Keith Waterhouse's 1959 novel must have blown like a fresh and impertinent breeze through the staid conventions of British literature. e. no one in Boon's entourage actually read what he sent Boon, including Boon himself), he planning on approaching Boon, who coincidentally is in town, to nail down the details of employment.black cloth covered boards, structurally sound, interior clean and tight, dj shows very light rubbing along edges, nf/nf 1st edition. And it is not the fault of his parents or the people around him but it is the social and economic upheavals of the world and the times that have given birth to this flawed yet utterly believable human being. Like other films made by ‘New Wave’ directors, Billy Liar, with its stereotyped female characters, can be accused of a certain misogyny – although the male characters are equally stereotyped and Liz represents someone new and different. Another one of the predicaments he's gotten himself into is that he is stringing along two different women, Barbara and Rita, who don't know or know of the other, and who, also unknown them, are "sharing" one engagement ring, which Billy has to manage to transfer between them in some manner through more lies. As the main floor lights can be seen turned off and as Billy's bedroom lights upstairs can be seen turned on, the camera pans away from the house as the national anthem of Ambrosia starts playing.

Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse | Waterstones

Many of the novels and films reflected a post war period when there were more educational opportunities for working class children, and this, together with new trends in youth culture, created a distance from the generation of their parents – Billy Liar has a comic scene that may well have inspired the ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch from At Last the 1948 Show, and later Monty Python.

Billy Liar is the chronicle of one decisive day in the life of its protagonist Billy Fisher; capturing brilliantly the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town in Yorkshire after the second world war, it describes a young fantasist with a job at a 'funeral furnisher' and a bedroom at his parents' – and longing for escape to the Good Life in London. So with the underage drinking, back-talking to parents, premarital sex and direct (at least for the 1950s) references to birth control, I imagine that this book was quite rebellious and ground-breaking in its day.

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