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The Wrong Trousers (1993)

Rating: 10 out of 10

Nick Park's critically and commercially successful odd couple, Wallace and Gromit, return in this witty plasticine parody that pays homage to Hitchcock and the noirish tradition of America's 1940s thrillers.

Wallace and Gromit crept into the public imagination in 1992 When their first adventure, A Grand Day Out, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short. Since then, the pair have enjoyed an exponential increase in popularity, from cult favorites to Academy Award regulars (The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995) both winning Oscars for Best Animated Short Film), through to the announced interest that both Disney and Steven Spielberg have in producing a big-budget theatrical episode of the series.

Based on characters Park developed while at art school, Wallace is an eccentric, absent-minded inventor with a heart of gold and Gromit his loyal, speechless dog (whose reading of Pluto's The Republic suggests superior intelligence). Like Inspector Gadget's canine companion Brain, Gromit is generally given the hazardous responsibility of cleaning up Wallace's mistakes. Such is certainly the case in The Wrong Trousers.

In an attempt to take control of his struggling financial position, Wallace offers a spare room for rent, attracting an assertive penguin applicant whose entry and psychological transformation recalls countless thriller conventions. The penguin turns out to be a wanted diamond thief whose mastery of electronics rivals Wallace's own. Manipulating Wallace's newest creation, the Robocop-inspired "Techno Trousers" and title's namesake, he manages to conduct a well-planned jewellery robbery, which ends in a stunning high-speed pursuit on a toy train throughout the heroes' home.

What makes Wallace and Gromit so breathtakingly fresh, funny and addictive is the series' ability to cater to all tastes. As you may imagine, the hectic exploits of the plasticine pair involve a great deal of charming slapstick and witty anecdotes that have children in hysterics. Similarly, Nick Park has employed his fascination with cinema and his passionate appreciation of classic films in the multi-layering of the narrative and the inclusion of numerous intertextual references, which provide enough cranial stimulation to satisfy even the most discriminating audiences.

Cinematic clichés and direct references abound in this episode, from the storm that appears when the penguin moves upstairs, so as to light up his conniving features at just the right moment to the penguin's utilisation of the semi-artificial Wallace (in trousers) for his own macabre purposes prior to locking him in a closet at the conclusion of the mission (ala The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)).

Other great moments include the climax of Gromit's noirish pursuit sequence while hidden in the Meatabix dog food box, the sinister chicken reveal (a penguin with a glove on this head), the doomed attempt to use a three-armed claw to retrieve the diamond (those who have visited a game parlour will relate to that one), the masterful staging of the final train chase, which is undeniably one of the greatest chase scenes in cinema, and the trousers' lone, poetic, march off into the sunset.

Park has pushed his stop-frame animation work into a new plateau by employing stunning rain effects, an elected combination of deep focus and intense focus racking, wind effects (hairdryer blowing in one of Wallace's ears and out the other), suspenseful lighting and a 65-piece orchestral score. When this is combined with a determined penchant for perfectionism, a thoughtful script and intriguing characters makes it no wonder that Nick Park and his team are currently the toast of the animation world.

Review written by Joshua Smith, 1999.

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