À vingt-trois pas du mystère

If you have worn out all your Hitchcock videos and need a good way to fill in a few hours on a rainy afternoon, this is the movie for you. A blind play-write over hears a fiendish conversation and is determined to intervene. Armed with his trusty man-servant and beautiful American female companion, this flick delivers on many levels, right up to the twist at the end.

They don't seem to make movies like this one anymore. Mores the pity. A must see for all suspense fans, plus a lovely glimpse into 50's London.

Scored it as 8/10.

On a visit to London, an apparently recently blinded American playwrite over-hears a highly suspicious conversation which may or may not mean a kidnapping... together with his manservant and former secretary he begins to try and put the pieces together.

For 1956 this is a surprisingly twisted piece, involving both highly unconventional villain and target/victim. Delicious shots of mid-50's London (check out Barker's of Kensington), a serviceable performance by Johnson, Miles decorative but wasted (except in one scene), the glorious Parker, and Winwood hamming it up to the hilt, all add up to an enjoyable sub-Hitchcockian romp. Yes it owes a debt to 'Rear Window', but then 'Wait Until Dark' owes a debt to this!

This I assert is a minor masterpiece of film-making, which has long been underestimated by critics but never by fans. Its images, I suggest, burn themselves into the mind where other cinematic tales soon pale and are forgotten. To mention just a few scenes, the film presents a blind playwright describing the view of the Thames to the fiancé he left behind, a lovely nanny who isn't quite what she seems playing another nanny or perhaps not, a sightless man guiding a lost man through a fog, the same man discovering that a building's front isn't there and a battle in the darkness between a murderer and victim. The script, adapted from a tense Philip MacDonald novel by Nigel Balchin, was made into what I say is an expensive-looking and relentlessly beautiful film by veteran director Henry Hathway. Henry Ephron produced, and every element was realized seemingly by flawless skill, from understated music by Leigh Harline to the cinematography by Milton R. Krasne, to the art direction by Lyle Wheeler and Maurice Ransford, to the outstanding set decorations by Walter M. Scott and Fay Babock and costumes by Travilla. Add famed Ben Nye as makeup artist and the great Helen Turpin as hair stylist and it would be hard for this film to have gone anything but very right. The cast is headed by lovely young Vera Miles as the love interest and Van Johnson coming near something very fine as the blind playwright, Philip Hannon. Maurice Denham plays a befuddled police Inspector, and Cecil Parker tries hard as Hannon's assistant. Patricia Laffan has her best role since Quo Vadis as the mysterious Miss MacDonald, stealing every scene she is in. Other actors showing to advantage include within this strongly-made and taut fictional noir mystery Liam Redmond, Isobel Elsom, lively Estelle Winwood, Martin Benson, Natalie Norwick, and Terence de Marney. On the grounds of pace, intelligence of dialog and sheer memorability alone, this is a Top Hundred film, and the father to many stories starring blind protagonists from TV's "Longstreet" to "Wait Until Dark". There had been films about a blind central character before; but this Technicolor, attractive and exciting film was the project that brought the idea of such films to the minds of producers and viewers alike as none before had done. The mystery I believe is an interesting one, the characters believable from first to last, and the extraordinary work by Patricia Laffan and Vera Miles raise the film far above its competitors' best. It is clearly much better than "in the Heat of the Night", the obsessive "Vertigo" or even "Key Largo". And its makers accomplish its power without striving consciously to achieve it. Were it not for "Rear Window", the film might be considered the best 50's noir of all. I recommend it unreservedly.

Passable suspenser despite a rather muddled script that doesn't acquaint us well with either the suspects or the plot developments. Thus the mystery part minimizes needed involvement. Johnson does an acceptable job feigning a blind man, but perhaps his biggest triumph is removing any sentimentality from Hannon's affliction. Thus the film never, to its credit, descends into the kind of treacle it so easily could have. In fact, Hannon remains understandably irascible throughout.

That tightrope struggle on the crumbling roof is a real nail-biter and the film's dramatic highpoint. But frankly the showdown in Hannon's darkened apartment lacks the skillful development of, say, Wait Until Dark (1967), to become memorable. The live London backdrop, however, adds a lot of interesting color and is well photographed. And though she's winsome as heck, Vera Miles is largely wasted in a part that many lesser actresses could have filled. Anyway, the movie's an acceptable time passer with a few good moments, but I'll bet it's not on Scotland Yard's Must-See list.

Now I will go to great trouble to avoid entering a spoiler like an earlier commenter. I give this film such a high rating because of the cleverness of toe concept: a blind man overhearing a conversation which indicates a crime is afoot. A tip of toe hat to the commentator who noticed the similarity between this movie and Argento's Cat O' Nine Tails ... a similarity that immediately crossed my mind the first time I saw the Argento flick. Anyway, 23 Paces to Baker Street could easily be an Argento giallo with the clever plot twists, but it lacks the gore most Argento fans want. I enjoyed 23P in 1956 when it was new and I was my voice had not changed. The plot twists and surprises have remained vividly in my memory for 50 years. Oddly I didn't notice a resemblance to Rear Window but I was very young then. I heartily recommend 23P to Baker Street. It's most suspenseful!