SARAH CLYNE SUNDBERG IS THANKFUL FOR:

BILLY LIAR (1963)



Billy Fisher is a young man with a well-developed fantasy life and a rather disappointing real one. He lives in some unfun industrial Northern town in drab post-war England. Life after graduation is not all it was cracked up to be — despite working at a funeral parlor that hawks plastic coffins and having two fiancés, plus a girl on the side — Billy still lives with parents and grandmother. His closet is stuffed with calendars pilfered from work and unpublished manuscripts. In his spare time he escapes to his own private dictatorship where he is a leader-war hero and adoring citizens greet him with a "left-handed salute." He also dreams of moving to London to work as a scriptwriter, but doesn't seem to be able to get it together sufficiently to leave. A young and beautiful Julie Christie assures him, "It's easy, you get on a train, then four hours later you are there." Billy is not convinced. I saw this movie when I was about 16 and couldn't wait to get out of the European satellite town I lived in. Like some of the best pop music to come out of England, Billy Liar told me that I was not alone and that others had felt my pain. For this I am thankful.

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