How Long Is “Billy Liar”?

Billy (Tom Courtenay) is stuck in his dead-end job as a clerk for a local funeral director. Shadrack (Leonard Rossiter) is his hard driving, humorless employer who scolds young Billy for his constant daydreaming. Billy has two women on the string who believe he will marry them. He takes comfort in an understanding girl named Liz (Julie Christie). Billy has the bad habit of being a pathological liar and reverting to an imaginary world where he dreams he is the dictator of a fictional country. He finds no comfort from his mother, an airhead, or his father, a swaggering bully. The screenplay was written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall from their successful play of the same name.