The Salisbury, 90 St Martin’s Lane, WC2

On St Martin’s Lane, the southeast corner of St Martin’s Court, you can hardly miss the splendid Victorian glitter of the Salisbury. An eye-popping dazzle of brass, etched glass and mahogany, it’s now packed and touristy, but the Salisbury used to be one of London’s old theatrical bars – with all that implies. Naturally, it figured as the West End gay bar, out of which the con artists operate, in the ground-breaking Victim, with Dirk Bogarde trashing his matinee idol image as closeted bisexual barrister Melville Farr.

In-joke or coincidence – gay director George Cukor set Maggie Smith's digs above the Salisbury in his film of Graham Green’s Travels With My Aunt.

Trivia: opposite the Salisbury runs the narrow alleyway of New Row, where the fictitious ‘Silver Fox’ nightclub was situated in the 1950 film noir Night and the City.

Victim (1961, dir: Basil Dearden)
Travels With My Aunt (1972, dir: George Cukor)