23 Paces to Baker Street is a 1956 American DeLuxe Color mystery thriller film directed by Henry Hathaway. It was released by 20th Century Fox and filmed in Cinemascope on location in London. The screenplay by Nigel Balchin was based on the 1938 novel Warrant for X, original UK title The Nursemaid Who Disappeared by Philip MacDonald. The film focuses on Philip Hannon (Van Johnson), a blind playwright who overhears a partial conversation he believes is related to the planning of a kidnapping. Hannon searches for the child with the help of his butler and ex-fiancée, using his acute sense of hearing to gather evidence and serve as guidance. The plot of the film is similar to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window of 1954, which also features a disabled protagonist witnessing a crime whom the police refuse to take seriously, therefore placing him in danger and culminating in a final standoff with the killer in the protagonist's darkened apartment.