Plot
Baker Bob is bludgeoned to death with his own rolling pin by an unseen assailant while baking a cake; he is the latest of twelve bakers to be killed. Meanwhile, Wallace (Peter Sallis) and Gromit are running a "Dough to Door" delivery service from their bakery "Top Bun". On one such delivery, the duo save Piella Bakewell (Sally Lindsay), a former pin-up girl mascot for the Bake-O-Lite bread company, and her dog Fluffles, when the brakes on her bike appear to fail. They drive alongside so Wallace can attempt to use pastries to stop, but they careen into a zoo and barely escape being eaten by a crocodile. Gromit tests the bicycle brakes and becomes suspicious on learning that they work, but Wallace becomes smitten with Piella.
A whirlwind romance ensues, during which it is also shown that the nervous Fluffles is treated rather shabbily by Piella. Fluffles and Gromit also share a sensitive moment after she timidly returns Gromit's possessions, which have been discarded by Piella, after she gives Wallace's house (including Gromit's room) a "woman's touch". However, when she leaves her purse at the house, Wallace decides to return it, but it is raining outside. Not wanting to get wet, he insists that Gromit return it instead. Upon arriving at Piella's affluent mansion, Gromit discovers several dressmaker's dummies in her bedroom, each wearing a baker's hat and apron. In a book, Gromit discovers photographs of Piella with the murdered bakers. To his horror, Gromit discovers Piella is the "Cereal Killer" as he discovers a picture with Wallace as her apparent intended thirteenth victim, thus completing a "baker's dozen." Gromit accidentally knocks over all the dummies, but gets them all back up again before Piella enters the bedroom. Despite Piella's lavish ways, Fluffles has to sleep in an old cardboard box, covered with a tattered rag, implying years of mistreatment.
Despite Wallace being oblivious, Gromit attempts to thwart Piella by installing an airport-style metal detector in their home. After tricking Wallace into thinking that Gromit bit her, Piella almost succeeds at pushing Wallace to his death whilst a chained up Gromit can only watch, but she is thwarted by being struck by a bag of flour from Wallace's dough-mixing contraption. After an angry outburst against bakers, she leaves but returns a day later to apologies with a large cake. Wallace says that it will do nicely for four o'clock tea. When Piella is leaving to attend to the absent Fluffles (who is "not well"), she tells him he will be getting a surprise. A worried Gromit follows her home only to be caught and imprisoned with Fluffles in a storeroom. Escaping in Piella's old Bake-O-Lite hot air balloon, they arrive at Wallace's house as he is lighting the candle.
After a struggle, the cake falls to the floor and a bomb inside is revealed. While attempting to dispose of the bomb, Wallace and Gromit are attacked by Piella, who reveals she is the cereal killer and detests bakers and their creations for ruining her figure and her career as the Bake-O-Lite girl after her obesity from consuming too much bread and cakes meant she could not ride her balloon anymore. While attempting to finish off Wallace, a battle ensues between Piella and Fluffles in a yellow forklift truck covered by giant oven mitts.
In the chaos, the bomb ends up in the back of Wallace's trousers. Gromit and Fluffles neutralize the explosion using a large amount of dough while Piella uses the distraction to leap onto her balloon and escape. However, owing to her weight, the balloon crashes into the crocodile pit at the zoo where she is eaten alive (off-screen). The balloon floats away with Piella's ghost (her former slim self) waving goodbye to Wallace and Gronmit. Distraught by the death of her owner, Fluffles leaves, with both Wallace and Gromit depressed over their losses (though Wallace cheers up after a good tea while Gromit is still upset). Deciding to take their minds off things, they head out to deliver bread and find Fluffles standing in the driveway, uncertain as to what to do or where to go. She joins them in the van and the three drive off into the sunset.
Read more about this topic: A Matter Of Loaf And Death
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
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“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor’s thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)