23 Paces to Baker Street
Encyclopedia
23 Paces to Baker Street is a 1956 American drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 released by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

. The Hitchcockian
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

 mystery thriller, filmed in Cinemascope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...

 on location in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, focuses on Philip Hannon, a blind playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 who overhears a partial conversation he believes is related to the planning of a kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...

. When the authorities fail to take action because they believe his story is the product of a writer's fertile imagination, Hannon searches for the child with the help of his butler
Butler
A butler is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor, and housekeepers caring for the entire house and its...

 and fiancée, using his acute sense of hearing to gather evidence and serve as guidance.

Nigel Balchin
Nigel Balchin
Nigel Balchin was an English novelist and screenwriter particularly known for his novels written during and immediately after World War II: Darkness Falls From the Air, The Small Back Room and Mine Own Executioner.-Life:He was born Nigel Marlin Balchin in Potterne, Wiltshire to...

's screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

, based on a novel by Philip MacDonald
Philip MacDonald
Philip MacDonald was an English author of thrillers.-Life and work:...

, was directed by Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring John Wayne.-Background:...

.

Cast

  • Van Johnson
    Van Johnson
    Van Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....

     as Phillip Hannon
  • Vera Miles
    Vera Miles
    Vera Miles is an American film actress who gained popularity for starring in films such as The Searchers, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Psycho and Psycho II.-Early life:...

     as Jean Lennox
  • Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker was an English character and comedy actor with a distinctive husky voice, who usually played supporting roles in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969....

     as Bob Matthews
  • Maurice Denham
    Maurice Denham
    Maurice Denham OBE was an English character actor who appeared in over 100 television programmes and films throughout his long career.-Life and career:...

     as Inspector Grovening
  • Isobel Elsom
    Isobel Elsom
    Isobel Elsom was an English screen, stage, and television actress.-Career:Born as Isobel Jeannette Reed in Cambridge, England, Elsom usually was cast as an aristocratic lady of the upper class. Over the course of three decades she appeared in 17 Broadway productions, beginning with The Ghost Train...

     as Lady Syrett
  • Estelle Winwood
    Estelle Winwood
    Estelle Winwood was an English stage and film actress who moved to the United States in mid-career and became celebrated for her longevity.-Early life and early career:...

     as Barmaid
  • Liam Redmond
    Liam Redmond
    Liam Redmond was an Irish actor known for his stage, film and television roles.-Early life:Redmond was one of four children born to carpenter Thomas and Eileen Redmond...

     as Mr. Murch
  • Martin Benson
    Martin Benson (actor)
    Martin Benjamin Benson was an English character actor, who appeared in films, theatre and television. He appeared in both British and Hollywood productions.-Career:...

     as Pillings
  • Natalie Norwick as Janet Murch
  • Terence De Marney
    Terence De Marney
    Terence De Marney was a British film, stage, radio, and television actor, as well as theatre director and writer.-Actor:...

     as Sergeant Luce


Critical reception

In his review in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

observed, "a large part of this picture is curiously casual and slow, as Van Johnson, as the blind man, bores the mischief out of everybody with his hazy suspicions . . . . for that matter, he bores the audience, too. Lots of unimpressed fellows were ho-humming in the balcony at Loew's State yesterday . . . matters do start popping about half or two-thirds of the way along, when it is finally discovered, through various coincidences, that something has been cooking all the time. But you have to depend on Mr. Johnson — and Nigel Balchin, the screenwriter — to give you the details after they've been discovered. This is not a good way to get people interested in a mystery show . . . it would be a more exciting picture if it got going with a little more snap, established a more compelling mystery and built up some genuine suspense."
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