74 Portland Place, W1

74 Portland Place is home to embittered blind playwright Phillip Hannon (Van Johnson) in Henry Hathaway’s glossy, Hitchcockian thriller 23 Paces to Baker Street.

The title comes from Hannon’s directions to a lost soul in the London fog – though geography is not the movie’s main strength. Hannon’s apartment not only looks out to the house of lawyer Gregory Peck in Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (which is on the same side of the road) but, uniquely for Portland Place, has a rear terrace overlooking the Thames.

23 Paces To Baker Street (1956, dir: Henry Hathaway)