Seven Keys to Baldpate
About Seven Keys to Baldpate
Novelist William Magee bets Hal Bentley $5,000 that he can write 10,000 words in twenty-four hours at the empty Baldpate Inn. A man arrives to hide graft money, a reporter named Mary Norton is investigating, and a hermit throws $200,000 into the fire. A woman is shot and Magee is accused. Bentley then admits the crimes were staged by actors, to show Magee how false a melodrama is. Magee finishes the story alone and takes up again with the real Mary.
Cast & crew
More about Seven Keys to Baldpate
Reginald Barker directed. Jane Murfin wrote the screenplay from Earl Derr Biggers's 1913 novel and George M. Cohan's 1913 play. Edward Cronjager photographed it. RKO premiered it in New York on 25 December 1929 and released it in the United States on 12 January 1930. It is the first sound version, after silent films in 1916, 1917, and 1925.
Themes
Background
The first sound film of a story already filmed silent three times, opened at Christmas 1929.
Making
RKO cast Dix in Cohan's old role and shot it as an early talkie mystery, with the hoax revealed only at the end.
Reviews
Mordaunt Hall wrote in The New York Times that the sound version was more effective than Douglas MacLean's silent film and that people who had missed the play would find it exciting. Leonard Maltin later gave it three stars and called Dix buoyant.
Look
Edward Cronjager shot the mountaintop inn and the crowding of the lobby as each new key-holder arrives.
Music
Roy Webb is credited with the music. The film is a talkie.
Notes
- Richard Dix plays Magee. Miriam Seegar plays Mary Norton. Margaret Livingston plays Myra Thornhill.
- Carleton Macy repeats his police-chief role from the 1917 film. Crauford Kent and Edith Yorke repeat roles from the 1925 film.
- Roy Webb is credited with the music.
- Mordaunt Hall in The New York Times preferred it to Douglas MacLean's silent version of three years earlier.
Scenes
- Magee locks Bland up and takes his gun.
- The hermit throws the $200,000 into the fire.
- Bentley tells Magee the criminals were actors.
Influenced by
- Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913 novel)
- Seven Keys to Baldpate (1917 film)
Also available
- Internet Archive (seven-keys-to-baldpate-1929_202110)
