A Close Shave - Summary

Summary

In the middle of a night, a small sheep escapes from a mysterious lorry and enters the house of Wallace and Gromit, who are currently running a window-cleaning business. The next morning, Wallace and Gromit fail to notice the sheep chewing at their food and furniture, as well as their new Porridge Gun, before they leave for work. While they clean the windows of a wool shop, Wallace meets and falls in love with Wendolene Ramsbottom, the shopkeeper. She is the daughter of a late inventor and owns a sinister dog called Preston, who runs a sheep-rustling scheme to supply the shop. After returning from work they discover the sheep, who has wrecked their furniture and is covered in mess.

To clean him up, Wallace puts the sheep into one of his inventions, the Knit-o-Matic and programs it to give a "Wash". Unfortunately, the machine develops a fault and changes the setting to "Light Shave", and proceeds to suck the sheep into the rest of the machine, give him a shear and knit his wool into a small sweater. The sheep emerges from the machine shivering, but mostly unharmed; Wallace names him "Shaun" (a pun on the word "shorn") and dresses him in the sweater. Preston spies on the scene while hidden in a drain and after they leave, he sneaks in and steals the design blueprints for the Knit-o-Matic.

The next day, Wallace and Gromit are cleaning the clock tower outside Wendolene's shop, and Wallace pays Wendolene another visit. Gromit attempts to investigate what Preston is doing, but ends up getting framed for the sheep rustling and captured by Preston. Gromit is handed into the authorities and sentenced to life in prison while Wallace finds his house overrun with sheep, with Wendolene telling him to not visit her anymore out of her concern that Gromit is innocent.

Wallace, Shaun and the other sheep rescue Gromit from prison and they hide out in the fields, where Wallace attempts to talk Gromit into leaving the country. Wendolene and Preston arrive and round up the sheep, whereupon the former finally rebels against the latter, telling him to put an end to his sheep-rustling scheme, but Preston turns against her and locks her in the lorry with the captured sheep (including Shaun) and drives away. Wallace and Gromit overhear Wendolene pleading, "Let me out! You're not going to turn me into dog meat!", meaning Preston is using the sheep thefts as an attempt to secure his own brand of dog food for profit, even if it meant murdering his owner the same way.

Wallace and Gromit give chase on their motorbike, hoping to save Wendolene and the sheep and clear Gromit's name. During the chase, the sidecar Gromit rides in is separated, and it heads down another road and flies off the edge of a cliff. Gromit saves himself by activating the sidecar's ability to turn itself into an aeroplane, and flies after Wallace's motorbike and the lorry. Both of their attempts to stop Preston are unsuccessful and Wallace manages to get himself trapped inside the lorry. The captives are taken into Preston's factory, where Preston has used the stolen blueprints to build a giant replica of the Knit-o-Matic machine. The captives are loaded into the wash basin, with Shaun escaping, and Preston pulls out the nozzle to suck them into the Knit-o-Matic.

As Wallace and Wendolene fight against the suction force, Shaun activates neon advertisements, revealing the factory's location to Gromit, who then flies in and attacks Preston with the Porridge Gun. Shaun is then able to pull the nozzle away to suck Preston into the Knit-o-Matic, which Gromit programs to give a "Close Shave". During the shearing, Preston breaks out of the machine, revealed by Wendolene to be a malfunctioning "cyber-dog", built by her father to serve as a pet but "turned out evil!". Unable to see after being dressed in a sweater knitted out of his fake fur, Preston blunders around and accidentally loads all of them onto the conveyor belt of his "Mutton-o-Matic" mincing machine. As they all fight against the conveyor belt, Shaun swings over on an anvil and knocks Preston into the machine, where he is destroyed and packaged as his own dog food.

At the end of the film, Gromit is exonerated from all charges of the thefts, Wallace has rebuilt Preston back to how he used to be and a remote control, and Wendolene stops by to thank him. However, when Wallace invites her in, he learns she is allergic to cheese, much to his dismay ("What's wrong with Wensleydale?"). What's more, Shaun has been hiding in the cheese tray and despite being ordered by Wallace to go for him, Gromit ignores both.

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 as the second speaking character for the series, voiced by Anne Reid.