The Full Monty

For other uses, see The Full Monty (disambiguation).

The Full Monty
File:Full monty.jpg original film poster
Directed by	Peter Cattaneo
Written by	Simon Beaufoy
Produced by	Uberto Pasolini
Starring	Robert Carlyle Mark Addy William Snape Steve Huison Tom Wilkinson Paul Barber Hugo Speer
Distributed by	Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release dates	United States: 13 August 1997 United Kingdom:29 August 1997 Australia: 16 October 1997
Running time	91 min.
Language	English
Budget	$3.5 million
Box office	$257,850,122

The Full Monty is a 1997 British comedy film. It tells the story of six unemployed men, four of them steel workers, who decide to form a male striptease act (à la Chippendale dancers) in order to gather enough money to get somewhere else and for main character Gaz to be able to see his son. Despite being a comedy, the film also touches on serious subjects such as unemployment, fathers' rights, depression, impotence, working class culture and suicide. The film was rated a 15 in Britain for frequent strong language.

The Full Monty is set in Sheffield, England, and stars Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber, and Hugo Speer. The screenplay was by Simon Beaufoy. The film was directed by Peter Cattaneo.

Plot

The year is 1972, and the place is "Sheffield... the beating heart of Britain's industrial north", as described by the narrator in a short film visualising the city's economic prosperity, borne out of Sheffield's highly successful steel industry. The film shows busy steel mills, producing everything from kitchen cutlery to tensile girders, along with the run-off from the mills... successful retail establishments, nightclubs, and attractive housing. The film concludes with "thanks to steel, Sheffield really is a city on the move!"

Fast forward to a quarter century later in the same city but in far different light than that of the early-1970s. The once-successful steel mills of then have grown brown with rust, rolling equipment has been removed, and the lines are silent. Gary "Gaz" Schofield (Robert Carlyle) and Dave Horsefall (Mark Addy), desperate to make some money, are inside their former workplace trying to get a steel beam out of the mill with the intent of selling it. They attempt to get the beam out of the mill by crossing the canal on the roof of a half sunken car, which promptly topples back and forth. Undaunted, they try to salvage the beam, but their attempts prove futile.

Gaz is later informed by his ex-wife that she intends to take court action against him for the child support payments that he's failed to make since losing his job. Compromising the situation further is Gaz's son, Nathan (William Snape), who reluctantly spends time with Gaz. He grows tired of his father's seeming lack of motivation to do something with his life and get his act together.

While Gaz, Dave, and Nathan are walking down a street, they see a line of women gathered for a Chippendales show outside a Working Man's Club they frequent. Intrigued by the women's willingness to stand in line for a striptease act, Gaz is convinced that his ship has finally come in: he decides to organize a similar act of his own, with the intent to earn enough money to pay for his child support obligations.

The first to join the act is gauche and lonely Lomper (Steve Huison), a security guard at Harrison's, the steel mill where Dave and Gaz once worked. After Lomper finally loses his job long after the mill shuts down, he tries to commit suicide by asphyxiating himself in his car via carbon monoxide poisoning. Dave pulls him out, strongly resisted at first by Lomper's stubborn-minded protests. He ultimately has no rebuttal to Dave's more relentless logic and with the reassurance of his new-found friends behind him, Lomper joins the fledgling lineup. His rescue and inclusion in the group gives him a newly-optimistic and confident outlook on life.

Next on Dave and Gaz's list is their former foreman, the middle-class aspirant Gerald Arthur Cooper (Tom Wilkinson), whom they witness performing at a sequence dancing class with his immaculately-groomed wife. They later approach him about giving them lessons, but Gerald rebuffs them with insults, telling them he's on his way to a job interview and has no time for their coarseness and irreverence. Gaz and Dave tail Gerald to the interview, where they distract him from outside the office window to the point where he blows the interview. He confronts them both at the local Job Club, loses his temper and physically assaults Gaz as he reveals that had he been successful, he could have continued to conceal his unemployment from his wife (who is still spending whilst not knowing her husband has been out of work for months).

A despondent Gerald leaves Job Club and sits on a park bench, all but emotionally defeated. Gary and Gaz patch things up with Gerald and tell him of their scheme. With literally no options left, Gerald agrees to be the act's choreographer.

In a sequence of darkly comic scenes, various former co-workers of Gaz and Dave perform a strip-tease for them as their audition. One of the auditioners is invited to sit down after he flunks; he declines, saying that his children are outside waiting 'in the car' and that 'this is no place for kids' before glancing pointedly at Nathan (recruited by his father Gaz to work their stereo) before leaving. Other auditioners are hired: whether for their comprehensive dance knowledge (whilst overlooking evidence of advanced arthritis) in the case of Barrington 'Horse' Mitchell (Paul Barber), and jaw-dropping, euphemism-inducing penis size in the case of Guy (Hugo Speer), who exposes it with pride to the five men, and even to Nathan, and chuckles. Guy is a former employee of Gerald's, having been hired to remodel his bathroom.

As the men practice, doubts continue to creep in about whether this is the best way to make some money, due to their individual insecurities over their appearances (Dave is overweight, for example). When the men are approached on the street by local women acquaintances who have heard of their show, Gaz declares that their show will be better than the Chippendales dancers because they'll go "the Full Monty" - strip all the way - hence the film's title. Dave quits less than a week before the show, deprecating himself as a 'fat bastard' whom no one would want to see in the nude - including his wife, Jean.

During a dress rehearsal in front of Horse's family, the rest of the men get literally caught with their pants down in the abandoned factory they use for their practice, causing an unconventional chase scene involving most of the main characters running from their pursuers wearing orange leather thongs. Two of the strippers, Guy and Lomper, successfully escape, and fall into the window of the sitting of a nearby home. Wearing only the thong, Lomper falls into the home, through a window, then helps pull Guy in by gripping on to his feet, back, and butt. They look at each other for a while, now being part of a homoerotic embrace (the two are later seen holding hands at the funeral of Lomper's mother). Those the police caught, however, including Gaz, Gerald and Horse, are initially charged with indecent exposure, until the police show the men the surveillance tapes from the factory and their secret is revealed. When they are released, however, Gaz's ex-wife arrives at the station to take Nathan home, and afterward, she and her new boyfriend take out a court order against Gaz, which prevents him from seeing Nathan.

All seems lost, with the entire city of Sheffield knowing who the members of Hot Metal are and the cast ready to quit, until the owner of the pub informs Gaz that he has already sold 200 tickets for their show. Despite the good news (delivered by Gaz to his group-mates at a local job club), Dave still insists he can't do it and leaves abruptly.

Upon returning home, Dave's wife Jean confronts and picks a fight with him after finding his G-string from the act, as she had assumed that his late nights out (and the thong) meant he was having an affair with another woman. Dave explains what he really has been doing and breaks down emotionally in front of her, revealing his insecurity about stripping in public due to his weight. Jean comforts him in a very touching scene where she tells him that she wants to see him dance.

With not much left to lose, and a sold-out show, the men decide to go for it for one night (including Gerald, who has got the job from the interview he thought he'd failed). Dave, having re-gained his confidence with help from his wife, joins the rest of the group literally minutes before they go on stage. The film ends with the group on stage in front of a packed house, stripping to Tom Jones' version of You Can Leave Your Hat On (their hats being the final item removed).

Cast

• Robert Carlyle - Gaz
• Mark Addy - David aka Dave
• William Snape - Nathan
• Steve Huison - Lomper
• Tom Wilkinson - Gerald
• Paul Barber - Horse
• Hugo Speer - Guy
• Lesley Sharp - Jean
• Emily Woof - Mandy
• Deirdre Costello - Linda
• Paul Butterworth - Barry
• Dave Hill - Alan
• Bruce Jones - Reg
• Andrew Livingston - Terry
• Vinny Dhillon - Sharon
• Darren Wilkinson - Man in front of Gerald(In Dole Office Scene)

The Stocksbridge Brass Band feature heavily in the film. Afterwards, they went in to some decline thanks to the decline on the Sheffield steel industry and their sponsorship. The manager of the Orgreave Asda (now demolished) suggested to head office that they sponsor the band, who are now resultantly named the ASDA Brass Band.

Production

The famous "Hot Stuff" scene, in which the characters dance in the queue at the job centre, was originally going to be cut from the final production as it was "too unrealistic".

The cast allegedly agreed that all six of them would really do the "full monty" strip at the end in front of 400 extras, provided they had to do only one take. Therefore, the choreographer was hiding in front of the stage, just beyond the camera view, screaming directions at the cast during the closing scene.

Language

Main article: The Full Monty (phrase)

The film features frequent use of British slang, and in particular the slang of Sheffield.

The film's title is a phrase generally used in the UK to mean 'the whole lot', or 'the whole hog'; in the film, the characters use it to refer to full nudity - as Horse says, "No one said anything to me about the full monty!"

Other slang terms are used in the film. Some such as nesh (meaning a person unusually susceptible to cold) are used in Northern England as a whole. Jennel (an alley) is local to Sheffield: it is a variation on the word "ginnel", which is in full versions of the Oxford Dictionary and is used in many parts of England.

Controversy

New Zealand playwrights Anthony McCarten and Stephen Sinclair filed a 180 million pound lawsuit against the producers of The Full Monty in 1998. They claim that the movie blatantly infringed on their play Ladies Night, which toured both Britain and New Zealand. Andrew McCarten and Stephen Sinclair created a website containing their play in response to statements from the producers of The Full Monty that claimed the two productions were not alike. The lawsuit was settled out of court; as part of the agreement, the website containing Ladies Night was shut down.

Awards and recognition

The Full Monty won the BAFTA Award for Best Film in 1997. It was nominated for a total of four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Music Score, and Best Original Screenplay. In light of 1997's big winner, Titanic, the movie only won the Oscar for Best Original Music Score by Anne Dudley, with the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars going to Titanic and the Best Original Screenplay Oscar going to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting.

In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted The Full Monty the 49th greatest comedy film of all time.

The Reel Monty

The opening sequence of the Sheffield promotion film from 1971 is taken from City on the Move, a film commissioned by Peter Wigley, Sheffield's first ever publicity officer, to convince people that Sheffield was a centre for tourism and commerce. City on the Move was produced and directed by Jim and Marie-Luise Coulthard and showed a modern thriving city that was rapidly developing thanks to the successful steel industry in Sheffield. However, the film went virtually unnoticed until the Coulthards were approached about some of the footage being included in The Full Monty for a payment of £400 which they accepted. In 2008, City on the Move was released on DVD under the new name The Reel Monty.

Popular culture references

An episode of The Drew Carey Show titled "The Dog and Pony Show" featured Drew and the gang imitating The Full Monty by performing a striptease to replace Mrs. Louder's purebred show dog Lucky, who was neutered after Drew, Lewis, and Oswald found him in Drew's house, mistook him for a stray, and took him to the vet to have his fur clipped and be neutered. Several members of the films cast have a brief cameo near the end of the episode.The clip was also repeated in Drew's Dance Party

Stage adaptation

Main article: The Full Monty (musical)

The film inspired a 2000 Broadway musical of the same name; the characters and setting were Americanised.

See also

• The Full Monty (soundtrack)

External links

• Monty Mania — Ultimate guide to The Full Monty
• The Full Monty — Where that film title came from
• The Full Monty at IMDb
• The Full Monty at AllMovie
• ​The Full Monty​ at the Internet Broadway Database
• Production: The Full Monty - Working in the Theatre Seminar video at American Theatre Wing.org, September 2000