A Close Shave

Wallace and his dog, Gromit, operate a window cleaning business. Wallace falls for the 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, a machine which shears sheep and knits the wool into jumpers. Wallace names the sheep Shaun. Preston steals the Knit-o-Matic blueprints. When Gromit investigates, 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 save Gromit and hide out in the fields. Wendolene and Preston arrive in the 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 aeroplane 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 dog food factory, where Preston has built an enormous Knit-o-Matic. The captives are loaded into the wash basin, 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 a robot created by her deceased inventor father, and his behaviour is a result of him malfunctioning. 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. Afterwards, Wallace is crestfallen when Wendolene leaves and tells him that she is allergic to cheese. When he tries to cheer himself up with some cheese, he finds that Shaun has eaten it all, much to his dismay. ==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. 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. 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. ==References==