A Close Shave

This article is about the film. For the band, see Close Shave. For the saying, see close call.

A Close Shave
US edition VHS cover art
Directed by	Nick Park
Written by	Bob Baker Nick Park
Produced by	Carla Shelley Michael Rose
Starring	Peter Sallis Anne Reid
Cinematography	Dave Alex Riddett
Edited by	Helen Garrard
Music by	Julian Nott
Production companies	Aardman Animations Wallace and Gromit Ltd. BBC Bristol BBC Children's International
Distributed by	BBC Worldwide
Release date	24 December 1995 (1995-12-24)
Running time	30 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Budget	£1.3 million
Box office	$20,909

A Close Shave is a 1995 British stop-motion animated short film produced by Aardman Animations. The third instalment in the Wallace & Gromit series, following A Grand Day Out (1989) and The Wrong Trousers (1993), it was directed by Nick Park and written by Park and Bob Baker. In the film, Wallace (Peter Sallis) and Gromit are operating a window cleaning service, when Wallace falls for the owner of the local wool shop, Wendolene Ramsbottom (Anne Reid). The duo find that Wendolene is an unwitting accomplice in a sheep rustling operation run by her malevolent dog, Preston.

A Close Shave was acclaimed and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 68th Academy Awards. A spin-off television series based on a character introduced in the film, Shaun the Sheep, premiered in 2007.

Plot

Wallace and his dog, Gromit, operate a window cleaning business. Wallace falls for Wendolene Ramsbottom, the owner of a wool shop that is supplied by her sinister dog, Preston, rustling sheep. One rustled sheep follows Wallace and Gromit home; Wallace names him Shaun and cleans him up using his Knit-o-Matic, a machine which shears sheep and knits the wool into jumpers. Preston steals the Knit-o-Matic blueprints and when Gromit investigates, Preston captures him and frames him for the sheep rustling. Gromit is arrested and imprisoned, while Wallace's house is filled with the missing sheep. With their help, Wallace frees Gromit from prison and they return the sheep to the fields, where Wendolene and Preston arrive in a lorry to round them up. When Wendolene demands Preston stop rustling, he locks her in the lorry and drives away.

Wallace and Gromit give chase on their motorcycle, but Wallace becomes trapped in the lorry, while the motorcycle sidecar detaches and turns into an aeroplane, allowing Gromit to resume the chase from the air. Wallace, Wendolene and the sheep are transported to Preston's dog food factory and loads them into his own version of the Knit-o-Matic that he loads them all into, but Shaun escapes and activates the factory's neon sign, revealing its location to Gromit. Gromit flies into the factory and attacks Preston, who is sucked into the Knit-o-Matic and is revealed to be a robot created by Wendolene's inventor father, and his behaviour is a result of him malfunctioning. Preston inadvertently activates the controls for his mincing machine, which the group all fall into the path of, but Shaun jams the machine by knocking Preston into it. Gromit is exonerated and Wallace rebuilds Preston, programming him to be a harmless remote-controlled dog. Crestfallen after learning Wendolene is allergic to cheese, Wallace tries to cheer himself up with some cheese, but to his dismay finds that Shaun has eaten it all.

Cast

• Peter Sallis as Wallace
• Anne Reid as Wendolene Ramsbottom

Production

Peter Lord, the co-founder of Aardman, had Park simplify the script to keep the film to 30 minutes. Lord said it once contained "the best scene we ever had to cut", a love scene based on Brief Encounter between Wallace and Wendolene set in Crewe railway station. A spin-off television series based on the Shaun character, Shaun the Sheep, premiered in 2007. Park stated that he had not met Reid until after he completed the film and was astonished to see how similar her mannerisms were to how he modelled the Wendolene figure.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, A Close Shave has a perfect score of 100% based on 19 reviews, with an average rating of 8.6/10.

Roger Ebert wrote: "Wallace & Gromit, who like Bugs and Elmer or Mickey and Minnie live in an enduring, sometimes baffling, comic relationship". Roger Ebert's partner of the Chicago Tribune, film critic Gene Siskel, who did not review the film in print, gave the film a Thumbs Up of the television program Siskel & Ebert at the Movies.

Stephen Holden of The New York Times, described the film as lavish, charming and highly inventive. Patricia McCormick, who also reviewed the film for The New York Times, praised it for its wit and its appeal to adults.

Richard Harrington of The Washington Post called it "the most focused, delightful and rewarding of the many animation festivals that come through Washington". Ann Hornaday who also reviewed the film for The Washington Post called the film a "prison‑break drama, which in its way anticipates Chicken Run".

David Farnor in a 2019 review, praised the details and characters of Wendolene and Preston.

Dr. Grob gave the film three and a half stars out of five, praising the animation and sets, but compared it unfavorably to the previous film, criticizing the "predictable" plot and Preston as a villain.

External links

• Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived 2012-10-10)
• A Close Shave at IMDb
• A Close Shave at Rotten Tomatoes