Miss Fisher's "fabulous" gold-plated revolver

[230RN]

"MISS FISHER'S MURDER  MYSTERIES"

I came across this TV OTA listing on the local PBS channel  (KRMA HDTV
6.1) the other day.  "What? A detective show I had not heard of?"

I watched the remaining portion of it, decided it wasn't half bad, did some searching on it.

Ir involves a quite attractive young lady detective named Phryne Fisher in the late nineteen-twenties in Melbourne Australia who goes around solving murders sort of as a hobby.  Hey, why not... if a Priest can be a detective who goes around solving murders as a hobby, why not Miss Fisher?

If a grossly overweight detective can rassle with evildoers as in "Cannon," why not little Miss Fisher in the late twenties in Australia?

Anyhow, in digging around various sources on this program, it seems one of the plot devices is that she carries a small gold-plated revolver which comes into play, apparently in nearly all the episodes.

Miss Fisher's Revolver:



Closeup:



Hey, summbinch!  That's my EDC*, too!  'Cepting mine is blue!

So that intrigued me and I did a little digging and that gun is practically a star in its own right.

There are some sources which discuss the accuracies in the show and it seems some have noticed that the J-frame (this type of small revolver) did not go on the market until the nineteen-fifties.

I'd like to watch more of this series, but not as a "must watch" show... I'd like to discover her carry method, for example.

Anyhow, I would not have dug any further except some articles referred to "Miss Fisher's fabulous revolver," and that piqued my interest.

FWIW in terms of general amusement,

Terry, 230RN

* NOTE for other than American readers: EDC with respect to firearms means "Every Day Carry," the gun you routinely carry when out and about every day.

[HankB]

. . . she carries a small gold-plated revolver which comes into play, apparently in nearly all the episodes . . .  I'd like to discover her carry method, for example . . .

She only shares that with her most . . .  intimate . . .  close friends.   

[230RN]

She only shares that with her most . . .  intimate . . .  close friends.   

Yeah, that peaked peeked piqued my interest, too.

[HankB]

Yeah, that peaked peeked piqued my interest, too.

Ah! Homonyms!

[K Frame]

She only shares that with her most . . .  intimate . . .  close friends.   

There's something fishy about that...

[230RN]

I was thinking it's a good thing that version of the J-Frame is hammerless, but dared not say it.   

[HeroHog]

I was thinking it's a good thing that version of the J-Frame is hammerless, but dared not say it.   

[230RN]

^ Heh. And they had to clean it with Hoppe's Number 69.

I had a top-break early Smith chambered in .38 S&W which had been "dehorned."  To fire it single action you pulled the trigger a little bit so yould hook a thumb under the hammer and cock it for SA shooting.  Must have been one of those riverboat gambler guns which possibly started the paranoia about concealed weapons.  Coulda been a night-lady gun, too.  Transferred it to my son.

Terry, 230RN

[K Frame]

There was a 1982 movie called Vice Squad...

Gritty, dark, police drama.

One of the cops is a tall, leggy African American woman who wears side split skirts and carries her gun in a high ride thigh holster.

In one scene she draws and tells the guy she's holding at gunpoint "Blink and die in the dark, mother *expletive deleted*er."

Oh cool! Vice Squad is on Tubi!

[Perd Hapley]

I don't usually get to be "that guy," but this time around I'll say it. She doesn't look "quite" attractive to me. Just kinda attractive. 

[lee n. field]

I don't usually get to be "that guy," but this time around I'll say it. She doesn't look "quite" attractive to me. Just kinda attractive. 

Frau Fisher?  vampiric

[MechAg94]

There was a 1982 movie called Vice Squad...

Gritty, dark, police drama.

One of the cops is a tall, leggy African American woman who wears side split skirts and carries her gun in a high ride thigh holster.

In one scene she draws and tells the guy she's holding at gunpoint "Blink and die in the dark, mother *expletive deleted*er."

Oh cool! Vice Squad is on Tubi!

I bought copies of Police Squad and Sledge Hammer recently.  I imagine the only thing in common is they are police related.   

[Perd Hapley]

Love me some Sledge. 

David Rasche has ties to this part of the country. I was pleasantly surprised when he turned up again in a Coen brothers movie. Good for him.

Have any of you watched Angie Tribeca?

[dogmush]

Terry,

That series (canceled after Season 3 IIRC) Is based on a series of books by author Kerry Greenwood.  Mrs. Mush is the detective story junky around Casa De Mush, but I caught a couple episodes and read one of the books for lack of anything else on my kindle on an airplane.  I found the book to be a better story than the watered down show.

If you like reading, the complete list of Phryne Fisher novels (per Wikipedia) is:

Cocaine Blues (1989) aka Death by Misadventure[11]
Flying Too High (1990)
Murder on the Ballarat Train (1991)[12]
Death at Victoria Dock (1992)[13]
The Green Mill Murder (1993)
Blood and Circuses (1994)[14]
Ruddy Gore (1995)[15]
Urn Burial (1996)
Raisins and Almonds (1997)
Death Before Wicket (1999)
Away with the Fairies (2001)
Murder in Montparnasse (2002)
The Castlemaine Murders (2003)
Queen of the Flowers (2004)
Death by Water (2005)[16]
Murder in the Dark (2006)
Murder on a Midsummer Night (2008)
Dead Man's Chest (2010)
Unnatural Habits (2012)
Murder and Mendelssohn (2013)[17]
Death in Daylesford (2020)[18]
Murder in Williamstown (2022)
The Phryne Fisher Mysteries: Cocaine Blues / Flying Too High (omnibus) (2004)
A Question of Death (short story collection) (2008)
The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions (short story collection) (2021)[19]

I see at least a couple of them are available on Kindle Unlimited, if you have that service.

[230RN]

Dogmush, et alia, there was a lot to be said that I didn't in the OP.  LIke there's a later spinoff with her daughter, etc, etc.  Mainly I wanted to point out just how important that J-frame was, so identical to mine except for the gold plating, was in the show.  One image I found had her saying, "We have a quaint custom here, that the person holding the gun asks the questions," which I think I've seen or heard in another cop show at some point.  I don't know or care who said it first.

There's a show biz / theatrical term called a "MacGuffin," which is an article in the script which carries the script forward.  As in the old adage "If you put a gun on the fireplace mantel in the first act, you must use it by  the third act."  I think that little gold-plated jewel might qualify as a MacGuffin.

I search-engined it for the convenience of all:

Wiki:  "In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself...."

"Irrelevant" in this sense, that it wouldn't matter if it were a Colt Commander or whatever, as long as it could be made to "sparkle" for script purposes.

In terms of my description of Miss Fisher as "quite attractive," I was following my mother's and my comportment school training where I was also taught not to ask a lady if she is pregnant,..

That is, "if you have to, always describe a lady at least one step higher in 'beauty' than she actually is.  At least."  And since beauty is a judgement term, I rest on my characterisation as "quite attractive."

However, I am finding out more and more often that both my mother's and my comportment school training (circa 1954 AD)  is more and more irrelevant as time goes on.  "No, no, Terry, the salad fork goes here."  Who gives a shitty-assed ratfu ck nowadays?

Terry, 230RN

[Perd Hapley]

There's a show biz / theatrical term called a "MacGuffin," which is an article in the script which carries the script forward.  As in the old adage "If you put a gun on the fireplace mantel in the first act, you must use it by  the third act."  I think that little gold-plated jewel might qualify as a MacGuffin.

Huh. The saying about the gun is attributed to Anton Chekhov, and I had never mentally juxtaposed those two concepts before. I found this little write-up, which I think makes a good point.

https://www.writerswrite.co.za/a-macguffin-and-a-gun-two-literary-devices-for-crime-writers/

It's an interesting comparison and contrast, no?

I'm not sure I agree with him on the MacGuffin, though. He seems to be saying that within the story, the MacGuffin is revealed to be unimportant. I don't think that's true. I think the One Ring is a classic MacGuffin, but it's definitely very important to the characters. The thing to understand about a MacGuffin is that it's an interchangeable Very Important Thing. Frodo could have been trying to destroy a nuclear weapon or a time machine, and the story could have remained unchanged. To the writer or the audience, of course, it's not important.

[230RN]

Much of that appears in the remainder of my Wiki quotation. (I should have included a URL, as a REF.)

But at present, I don't think it's been "statutorily defined" as it were, and the MacGuffin concept can be applied either as a directly involved plot device, (the gun which goes bang in Act III) or as simply "coloration,": e.g. a physical description of the property ("painting with words") in the beginning, and also at the end as a closing device without actually being part of the story "action."

------------
As she left the room for the last time, he looked out the window.   The trees still shaded the swimming pool garden picnic table bird feeder.

              THE END
-----------

Yuch, I know, I know, but exemplary.  Something which has no action in the story but maybe just "frames" it.  I suppose one (you, not me) could write denotative definitions for each kind, but I'm OK with the blurry connotative definition usage.

Connotations, after all, are far more important than mere denotations.

That's cool, don't you think?

Terry 230RN

[lee n. field]

Kerry Greenwood (1954-2025)

Author Kerry Greenwood, 70, died March 26, 2025. She was best known for her historical mystery series about Phryne Fisher, adapted as TV series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, but she also wrote SF, along with historical fiction, books for young adults, and plays.

Kerry Isabelle Greenwood was born June, 17 1954 and grew up near Melbourne, Australia. She attended Maribyrnong College and the University of Melbourne, earning a law degree, after which she worked as a criminal lawyer.

Her works of SF interest include The Broken Wheel (1996) and sequels Whaleroad (1996), Cave Rats (1997), and Feral (1998); The Rat and the Raven (2005) and sequels Lightning Nest (2006) and Ravens Rising (2006); and Medea (2013) and sequels Cassandra (2022) and  Electra (2022).

She is survived by partner David Greagg.

[dogmush]

I was always under the impression that a MacGuffin was something that's sole and explicit purpose was to incite the plot (briefcase in Pulp Fiction, Ark of the Covenant,  Maltese Falcon, etc) where as Checkov's Gun was more like a guideline for background stuff (on the mantle in Act I ->must be used in Act III)  the gun isn't actually doing anything or propelling the plot in Acts I and II.

But everything i know about Film Theory I learned on YouTube .

[Perd Hapley]

I was always under the impression that a MacGuffin was something that's sole and explicit purpose was to incite the plot (briefcase in Pulp Fiction, Ark of the Covenant,  Maltese Falcon, etc) where as Checkov's Gun was more like a guideline for background stuff (on the mantle in Act I ->must be used in Act III)  the gun isn't actually doing anything or propelling the plot in Acts I and II.

But everything i know about Film Theory I learned on YouTube .

Pretty much. On both counts.

Chekhov was saying you shouldn't clutter a story with anything irrelevant. Everything should be there for a reason.

Here's more on MacGuffin:
https://www.britannica.com/art/MacGuffin

[230RN]

I was always under the impression that a MacGuffin was something that's sole and explicit purpose was to incite the plot (briefcase in Pulp Fiction, Ark of the Covenant,  Maltese Falcon, etc) where as Checkov's Gun was more like a guideline for background stuff (on the mantle in Act I ->must be used in Act III)  the gun isn't actually doing anything or propelling the plot in Acts I and II.

But everything i know about Film Theory I learned on YouTube .

Well, maybe it's just a personal quirk, but  I see more than that in the legitimate usage of the term.  I don't think it's been "statutorily defined," as I mentioned, and  the extension of the concpet to more than specific objects is legitimate.

That's why I added the term "cool" in one of my posts... e.g..,, that  connotaitve defnitions are important.  I'm thinking Kleenex and "caliber" (in small arms versus naval rifiles) as legitimate connotative uses and I have no trouble applying that notion to "MacGuffin."  And I am very much aware that people may offer supposedly denotative "definitions" of the term as fact even though they're just opinions. (Maybe just like I'm doing....? <grin>)

Feel free to disagree, but for example, I now find "cool" in modern dictionaries can mean more than a mere difference in temperature.

I will stick to my gonnes and rest on whatever the dictionaries of 2999AD say about "MacGuffin:"

"2.  Any literary device, image, or object which is similarly re-used as coloration or in actuality in later sections of the work."

Howzat?

In the OP, I was merely struck by the fact that her gold-coated "fabulous" carry revolvolator was the same model as my own iron oxide-coated un-fabulous carry revoivolator.  Which,happily, has no fables to tell.

And I still think she's "a quite attractive young lady."

Or was somebody challenging me on that just because they're connotatively gunning for me?



Denotatively, 230RN, Connotatively, Terry

[JTHunter]

If a grossly overweight detective can rassle with evildoers as in "Cannon," why not little Miss Fisher in the late twenties in Australia?

Don't forget Raymond Burr in a wheelchair in "Ironside".

[K Frame]

Don't forget Raymond Burr in a wheelchair in "Ironside".

Yeah, but he just ran over their toes. That's enough to stop any nefarious illdoer dead in their tracks.