Blind Witness – 23 Paces to Baker Street
A blind playwright. A London mystery. A plot no one believes.
23 Paces to Baker Street isn’t a Sherlock Holmes film, but the atmosphere, suspense, and detective work place it firmly Beyond Baker Street.
Beyond Baker Street X
The Blind Witness
23 Paces to Baker Street
The influence of Sherlock Holmes in film and television extends beyond the confines of Baker Street. The shadowy streets and enigmatic characters that populate these shows echo the world of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, yet they carve out their own distinct narratives, rich in mystery and intrigue. One such movie is 23 Paces to Baker Street (1956).
Henry Hathaway’s 23 Paces to Baker Street is a mystery thriller based on Philip MacDonald’s novel, The Nursemaid Who Disappeared (known in the USA as Warrant for X). The film stars Van Johnson and Vera Miles.
The film begins with playwright Philip Hannon (Van Johnson) dictating his latest play onto a reel-to-reel tape. In circumstances that are never explained, several years previously, in the USA, Hannon was rendered blind. He has now relocated to London—but is a bitter man.
When Jean Lennox (Vera Miles) arrives at his apartment unannounced, Hannon gives her the cold shoulder. Jean had been his secretary in the USA. They’d also been engaged to be married. For Hannon, she represents his “old life,” and he wants no part of it. Unaccompanied, he storms off to the local pub—The Eagle.
As he drinks a scotch alone, he overhears snatches of conversation between two people in the booth behind him—a man and a woman. The man appears to be threatening the woman to take part in some affair she doesn’t wish to be involved in. The woman, who appears to be a nursemaid, is told she’ll be well paid. Hannon believes it is a kidnapping plot. He returns home and records the conversation he overheard onto his tape recorder, acting out the roles. When he plays the recording for the police, they believe it’s all part of his over-active imagination. Disillusioned, Hannon believes he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands.
Beyond the title, and the London locations, this film has nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes nor Baker Street. In fact, it plays very similar to a Hitchcock thriller. The story was filmed previously in 1939 as The Nursemaid Who Disappeared.
Beyond Baker Street
I’ve always been fascinated by the shadow cast by Sherlock Holmes—a figure so iconic that his influence seeps into unexpected corners of pop culture. Beyond Baker Street is where I chase those echoes. Whether it’s a villain who once faced Holmes or a story that feels like it should’ve, this series lets me explore the strange tributaries that flow from the great detective’s world.
If you’ve enjoyed this piece, you’ll find even more to explore in my book Baker Street: The Curious Case Files of Sherlock Holmes—a deep dive into 100+ years of Sherlock Holmes in print, film, television, and beyond. From Conan Doyle’s original stories to pastiches, parodies, and pop culture echoes, it’s a must-read for Holmes fans and curious minds alike.
Yours in the Spirit of Adventure
David Foster is an Australian best-selling author who writes under the pen names James Hopwood, A.W. Hart, and Jack Tunney. Under the latter, he has contributed three titles to the popular Fight Card series. His short fiction has been published in over 50 publications worldwide, including by Clan Destine Press, Wolfpack Publishing, and Pro Se Productions, to name but a few. In 2015, he contributed to the multi-award-winning anthology Legends of New Pulp Fiction, published by Airship 27 Publishing.
Foster’s non-fiction work appeared in the award-winning Crime Factory Magazine, as well as contributing numerous articles exploring pulp fiction in popular culture to Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980 (2017, PM Press) and Sticking It to The Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980 (2019, PM Press). He has also contributed articles on the ANZAC war experience to Remembrance (2024, Union Street 21).
Foster lives in the old Pentridge Prison Complex, behind high grey stone walls, in inner-suburban Melbourne, Australia.
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