A Close Shave

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A Close Shave
File:A Close Shave.png
Wallace and Gromit on their way to wash windows.
Directed byNick Park
Written byNick Park
Bob Baker
Produced byPeter Lord
David Sproxton
StarringPeter Sallis
Anne Reid
CinematographyDave Alex Riddett
Edited byHelen Garrard
Music byJulian Nott
Distributed byBBC
Aardman Animations
Release date
December 24 1995
Running time
30 min.
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

A Close Shave is a 1995 animated film directed by Nick Park at Aardman Animations in Bristol, featuring his characters Wallace and Gromit. It was his third half-hour short featuring the eccentric inventor Wallace and his quiet but smart dog Gromit, following 1989's A Grand Day Out and 1993's The Wrong Trousers.

To celebrate the film's premiere on Christmas Eve 1995, BBC Two's Christmas presentation that year (broadcast from the 24th to 26th) featured Wallace and Gromit. The main ident featured the two eating Christmas dinner, with a large blue 2 (the channel's logo) situated in the middle of the table, covered with flashing Christmas lights. Several Christmas themed stings, also involving Wallace, Gromit, and the 2, were shown between programmes. The animation of these idents appeared slightly different from other Wallace and Gromit shorts.

Following in the footsteps of its predecessor The Wrong Trousers, in 1995 A Close Shave won the Academy Award for an Animated Short Film.

Summary

In this short, Wallace and Gromit are running a window-cleaning business, and their work brings Wallace into contact with wool shop owner Wendolene. Wallace falls in love with Wendolene, but also gets them involved in a sheep-rustling scheme run by Wendolene's sinister robot dog Preston to provide Wendolenes wool. Jealous of Gromit, Preston frames him for the thefts and has him sent to jail for life. Wendolene becomes upset and orders Preston to stop the sheep thefts. Instead, he locks her up with the intention of turning her (and the other sheep) into dog meat. Wallace, with the help of a flock of sheep (including a small shy one named Shaun, who accidentally got sheared by Wallace's machine while he and Gromit were bathing him), help Gromit break out of jail and they set off to rescue Wendolene and the sheep. In the end, Gromit and Shaun knock Preston into the dog food processor, which breaks him up into little pieces which are then packaged into cans. At the end of the film, Wendolene reveals that Preston was rebuilt with completely normal dog behavior. She visits Wallace, however he learns with much dismay that she can't stand cheese as it causes her to break out in a rash. A distraught Wallace decides to console himself with some cheese, only to find Shaun eating it.

As before, the 30 minutes are packed with sight gags and exaggerated physical comedy, as well as a few subtle film parodies. Voice acting was before the sole duty of Peter Sallis (the voice of Wallace), as Gromit is always silent. In 'A Close Shave', Wendolene was introduced, and was a second speaking character for the series, voiced by Anne Reid.

Facts and Figures

In-jokes and references

Here are a few subtle jokes from the film.

  • When Wallace receives a call for window-cleaning service, his method of getting to his motorbike and out onto the road is a direct homage to the Thunderbirds TV series (specifically, the way Virgil Tracy gets to Thunderbird 2 and into the air). Pastiche music in the style of Barry Gray's Thunderbird's music support this spoof.
  • Beside Wendolene's wools is a store entitled "Bob the Baker" in reference to Bob Baker, the co- writer of A Close Shave.
  • The name of the heroine, Wendolene, is a pun on "Windolene" - a proprietary window-cleaning solution.
  • The name of Wendolene's scheming pet with a dark secret, Preston, is the name of Nick Park's home town in Lancashire.
  • Shaun the Sheep's name is a pun, alluding to the way the sheep is left 'shorn' after falling foul of Wallace's latest invention.
  • There is a sign next to the balls of wool that Wallace collapses that reads "Wool rations: Two per person."
  • In Gromit's jail scene, the writing 'FEATHERS WUZ ERE' is a reference to the penguin lodger Wallace took in during the previous film The Wrong Trousers, Feathers McGraw. Feathers tried to steal an expensive diamond but was foiled by Wallace and Gromit and jailed (although he was actually jailed in a Zoo, and Gromit is shown as being in an actual Gaol). However, as Feathers McGraw is a known criminal, seen on wanted-posters even before he tries to steal the diamond it can be assumed, that he has been in an ordinary prison earlier in his career and possibly in Gromit's cell.
  • Graffiti on Gromit's prison table has many references to prison escapes, including The Great Escape (with an accompanying drawing) as well as Papillon. The table and graffiti are visible for less than one second before they are obscured by Gromit placing the present on the table.
  • Also in the jail scene, Gromit is reading a book called 'Crime And Punishment' by 'Fido Dogstoyevsky'. Crime and Punishment is a classic novel written by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, so the author name on Gromit's book is a double-pun on the original author's name. The spine of the book also has a penguin on it that looks like Feathers McGraw, with the words "A Penguin Classic", another double-pun, which also derives from the name of the book publisher Penguin Books.
  • The penguin, Feathers McGraw, actually makes a reappearance in one of the scenes when Gromit is separated by Wallace during the truck chase. In the shot when Gromit is about to be hit by the sign that informs him of the drop, Feathers can be seen for a split second to the bottom right in the beginning of the shot. However, it is difficult to tell whether it is actually him, or just a rock that looks like him.
  • When Gromit plummets down a precipice, the side-car he is travelling in turns into an aeroplane at the touch of a button. Gromit first avoids certain death, then uses the plane to attack Preston's truck. The side-car aeroplane is reminiscent of the gadgetry used by James Bond in his various films. Coincidentally the death-defying escape down the precipice is mirrored in the opening scene of GoldenEye which opened in cinemas one month before A Close Shave was first shown. However, considering the length of time needed to produce each Wallace and Gromit film, the scene was most probably storyboarded and shot months or even years in advance and it seems unlikely that the scene could have been influenced by Goldeneye. Its more immediate influence (supported by the music, the bombardment of Preston's van and Wallace's RAF salute) is Second World War air-battle movies such as Battle of Britain and 633 Squadron.
  • Gromit, while flying the sidecar, mimics Snoopy flying atop his doghouse in Peanuts (comics).
  • The sheep's arrangement on top of Wallace's motorcycle during their escape in the chase scene parodys that of motorcycle display teams.
  • There are a number of instances in the film which are obvious parallels to the films The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
  • As the truck catches up to Wallace's motorbike, Wallace exclaims "We're going at maximum speed". A scene in the second Terminator film has Arnold Schwarzenegger stating that their vehicle "has reached its maximum speed" as a truck is bearing down on them from behind.
  • Preston is described as a "Cyber-dog", and emerges as a robot from Wallace's "knit-o-matic" with fur and skin removed. This is a parallel with Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator from both films, whose flesh is removed to show its robotic structure.
  • Preston punches through a door and opens the handle from the other side much as the Terminator does in the first film, in the same exposed robotic state.
  • As Gromit pounds Preston with his Porridge-gun, he drives Preston further back to the edge of a precipice, where he could be sucked into the Knit-o-matic. At just the last moment, Preston avoids this fate. In the second Terminator film, Linda Hamilton's character pounds the T-1000 (played by Robert Patrick), with shotgun rounds, forcing it to the edge of a precipice. Hamilton's character then runs out of shells, allowing the T-1000 to avoid destruction at the last moment.
  • The screenplay for A Close Shave was co-written by Nick Park and Bob Baker. In addition to Preston the cyber-dog, Baker also co-created another mechanical dog, K-9 from Doctor Who.
  • In another Aardman Animation production, Rex the Runt, Wallace is seen as a window cleaner, as he is in this film. In Rex the Runt, Bad Bob pushes Wallace and his ladder away from the window, making him fall.

Deleted scenes

Because of the time-consuming nature of production, the running length had to be worked out by estimating each storyboarded shot's rough time, to avoid wasting days or weeks filming too much footage for the 30 minutes. The original storyboard was estimated to take up as long as 42 minutes of film, so an entire section at 'Ramsbottom Manor', featuring homages to the horror genre, and Walt Disney's Bambi, was cut out of the story and never shot. However this was a motif that would seem to have later found a place in Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Eventually, about 5 minutes of actual shot footage had to be cut out of the film to trim it to the usual 30 minutes. The cut footage included some shots with Wallace and Wendolene in the wool shop recalling the Noel Coward film Brief Encounter.

Sequels

After A Close Shave, Wallace And Gromit's next major outing was in a set of 10 2½-minute shorts called Cracking Contraptions, each showing one of Wallace's inventions. These appeared on the Internet and were also released as a limited edition Region 2 DVD, later on the Curse of the Were-Rabbit DVD. The true sequel to A Close Shave is the feature film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. In 2007, a Shaun the Sheep spin-off series was also released.

Credits

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Wallace and Gromit.
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