23 PACES TO BAKER STREET (1956) **1/2 Nice little Henry Hathaway piece with incredible London atmosphere. The kind, I guess, that Americans in London notice. Like the two leads-Van Johnson and Vera Miles-Hathaway is American, and together they do an incredible job of showing how and why beautiful London looks to the Americans who love it; and of producing that only-slightly-out-of-the-water feel that Americans have there. Although the title suggests Sherlock Holmes, the only other similarity is that a mystery's afoot. The plot-as full of potholes as a Soho lot the morning after Guy Fawkes day-and one that stretches your credibility regularly, and in a number of ways, was clearly not written by any master that might be mistaken for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, and it's going to be too slow for many modern viewers, but Hathaway does generate no small measure of that style of suspense that we now associate almost exclusively with Hitchcock (which is like saying that The Faces were a band like the Rolling Stones-well they were, but they were feeding off of each other), Van is so courageous and determined in the face of his blindness that it makes you feel properly guilty about worrying about your own silly problems, and Vera Miles is…very pleasant, she's Vera Miles.
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