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The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (2012)

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The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (2012) (Film)

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (2012) is an Australian television film adaptation of Fergus Hume’s classic 1886 crime novel.

The story is set in 1880s Melbourne, a city divided by wealth and class. The film begins when a wealthy young man, Oliver Whyte, is found dead in the back of a hansom cab after a night out. His murder shocks polite society and sets off a scandal that threatens to expose dark secrets among the city’s elite.

Detective Gorby is assigned to investigate, and suspicion soon falls on Brian Fitzgerald, a respectable young man who was seen with Whyte shortly before the murder. Fitzgerald is arrested, but his fiancée, Madge Frettlby, and her influential father Mark Frettlby, use their power to protect him. Meanwhile, Detective Kilsip takes over the case and digs deeper into Melbourne’s underworld, uncovering a tangled web of blackmail, illegitimacy, and social hypocrisy.

As the investigation unfolds, it’s revealed that Whyte had been blackmailing Mark Frettlby over a long-buried secret involving Madge’s parentage. The murder, ultimately, is tied to this hidden scandal and the desperation to keep it concealed.


Tropes:

  • Adopt-a-Servant: Mother Guttersnipe took in her granddaughter Sal after Sal's mother ran off to London, only to treat Sal as a virtual slave.
  • Bad Habits: John Knox poses as a clergyman to recruit girls in Melbourne for a brothel in Ballarat.
  • Bathtub Bonding: Madge and Sal first become friends when Madge is giving Sal a bath and washing her hair to clean her up so she can testify in court.
  • Bedsheet Ladder: After being arrested for Whyte's murder, Roger Moreland tears up the sheet from the bed and plaits it into a rope. He then ties his shoes to one end of the rope and tosses it through the window to anchor it. However, instead of trying to escape, he uses it hang himself.
  • Blackmail: As the investigation unfolds, it’s revealed that Whyte had been blackmailing Mark Frettlby over a long-buried secret involving Madge’s parentage.
  • Costume Copycat: Roger Moreland wears Whyte's overcoat, which is identical to Fitzgerald's, when he murders Whyte to make it appear that Fitzgerald is the killer.
  • Driven to Suicide: After being arrested for Whyte's murder, Roger Moreland hangs himself in his cell before he can stand trial.
  • Destroy the Evidence: Brian Fitzgerald burns the note from 'the Queen' that would have proved him innocent of Whyte's murder, because revealing its contents would socially ruin his fiancee. At the end of the movie, after Mark Frettlby has died, Fitzgerald and Duncan burn the marriage certificate that had been used to blackmail Frettlby.
  • Fanservice Extra: When Duncan and Detective Kilsip are in Little Bourke Street, a prostitute flashes her breasts at them.
  • Frame-Up: After seeing Fitzgerald put the drunken Whyte in a Hansom Cab, the killer disguises himself as Fitzgerald and boards the cab. They murder Whyte and leave behind a set of clues incriminating Fitzgerald.
  • Honour Before Reason: Brian Fitzgerald refuses to disclose where he was at the time of Whyte's murder because doing so would ruin his fiancee Madge Frettlby, even though remaining silent will almost certainly result in his being hanged.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Mother Guttersnipe is actually the mother of Rosanna Moore a.k.a. 'The Queen'. This, in turn means that Mark Frettlby is the father of Sal; a fact he realizes when he sees Sal wearing Rosanna's necklace.
  • Never Learned to Read: Sal Rawlins is illiterate. The prosecutor tries to use this to discredit her evidence in court, but she demonstrates she can read a clock just fine. After she becomes Madge's ladies maid, Madge starts teaching her to read.
  • Opium Den: Mother Guttersnipe runs one, amongst her other services to the underworld.
  • Scarred Back Reveal: When Madge is giving Sal a bath and washing her hair to clean her up so she can testify in court, she discovers the scars on Sal's back. Sal comments that they are nothing compared to what some girls get.
  • Vehicle Title

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