A Close Shave
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TITLE “A Close Shave” by Nick Park*
STUDIO/SCHOOL Aardman Animations
Wallace's whirlwind romance with the proprietor of the local wool shop puts his head in a spin and Gromit is framed for sheep-rustling in a fiendish criminal plot…
A Close Shave is a 1995 British stop-motion animated comedy film directed by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations. It is the third film featuring the eccentric duo Wallace and Gromit, following A Grand Day Out (1989) and The Wrong Trousers (1993).
The adventure centers on the case of the disappearing sheep. Inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit operate a window cleaning business. Wallace falls for wool shopkeeper Wendolene Ramsbottom; her sinister dog, Preston, rustles sheep to supply the shop. After a lost sheep wanders into the house, Wallace places him in his Knit-o-Matic, which shears sheep and knits the wool into jumpers, and names him Shaun. Preston steals the Knit-o-Matic blueprints. While Gromit investigates Preston, Preston captures him and frames him for the sheep rustling. Gromit is arrested and imprisoned, while Wallace's house is inundated with sheep. Wallace and the sheep break Gromit out of prison and hide out in the fields. Wendolene and Preston arrive in a lorry to round up the sheep.
When Wendolene demands Preston stop the rustling, he locks her in the lorry with the sheep and drives away, intent on turning them into dog food. Wallace and Gromit give chase on their motorcycle. When Gromit's sidecar detaches, he activates its airplane mode and resumes the chase from the air. Wallace becomes trapped in the lorry and he, Wendolene, and the sheep are transported to Preston's factory, where Preston has built an enormous Knit-o-Matic. The captives are loaded into the washbasin, but Shaun escapes.
Shaun activates neon signs to reveal the factory's location to Gromit, who attacks Preston. Shaun sucks Preston into the Knit-o-Matic, removing his fur. Wendolene reveals that Preston is actually a robot created by her inventor father for good, but became evil. When the Knit-o-Matic dresses Preston in a sweater made of his fur, he inadvertently hits the controls, and the group become poised to fall into the mincing machine. Shaun pushes Preston into the machine, crushing him. Gromit is exonerated and Wallace rebuilds Preston as a harmless remote controlled dog. When Wendolene visits, Wallace invites her to eat cheese, but she declines, saying that she is allergic. As a disheartened Wallace decides to help himself, he finds Shaun eating the cheese, much to his chagrin.
Just like the previous shorts, the story plays on themes (and theme music) from 1940s sci-fi thrillers, action-adventures, and noir classics, and depicts technology gone horribly and hilariously wrong, as Wallace's faulty and complicated inventions are a continual source of slapstick humor. Wallace and Gromit are an ingenious team, lovable if laughable. It's never quite clear who is a sidekick to whom as Gromit often seems to out-think his human counterpart. Younger children can identify with intelligent yet put-upon Gromit, who sees the villains before Wallace every time. Park really has a particular talent for creating unlikely villains: a penguin, an appliance abandoned on the moon, and this time, an evil robot dog.
The plot is complex and suspenseful, the characters are comical, and the claymation is as detailed as it is whimsical. Like ‘‘The Wrong Trousers’’, it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. ‘‘A Close Shave’’ has the first appearance of the character Shaun, who would later be the protagonist of the Shaun the Sheep spin-off television series and two feature films.
