The Full Monty

"The Full Monty," 1997's sleeper hit about six Sheffield steelworkers on the dole who strip for brass, is out for the first time on Blu-ray, featuring 30 minutes of deleted footage and ten featurettes.

Lead Robert Carlyle, as divorced father and chief instigator Gaz, won the 1998 BAFTA Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor, the "Cast" segment explains, shown next to the interviews shot 17 years ago. He also received the OBE in 1999. Co-star Tom Wilkinson (as former boss Gerald) also received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth in 2004.

In "The Success and Its Aftermath" director Peter Cattaneo remembers thinking, "What have we done?" when the crowd went wild during the film's first public screening at the Sundance Festival. The "rapturous reviews" also sold out venues in New York and San Francisco, and Wilkinson "couldn't believe the US audiences queuing around the block."

The film "struck a universal chord" when dubbed into French, Italian and Spanish, and was also well received in Australia since many could relate to the "struggle of making a living in bad times," making the piece evergreen with ongoing unemployment issues.

Princess Diana died during the second weekend of the Great Britain release, so most movie attendance dropped precipitously. But not for "The Full Monty." "I think this film holds a special place for the English because it helped them through that tragedy," Cattaneo says.

There was some British backlash regarding the project, because, although shot as an indie, it received most of its funding from the American company Fox, which is also discussed in "A Bigger Picture: A Look at the British Film Industry in the '90s." But audiences couldn't get enough, and chains like Tesco demanded much Monty merchandise. Theater producers wrote to ask about stage rights, so Fox opened the musical version on Broadway in 2000, to great success.

The film holds up despite the ubiquitous '90s earrings, worn on the left earlobe, by Carlyle and Mark Addy (self-conscious, chubby Dave). The lads watch fellow dancing steelworker in "Flashdance" -- "she's nifty on her pins" -- and feel "scrap" like the metal they once worked. And Dave ruefully remarks, "Anti-fat bastard cream there is none."

"The Full Monty"
Blu-ray
$16.18
http://www.foxsearchlight20th.com/social/full-monty/