SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE C-
USA (80 mi) 1935 d: William Hamilton and Edward Killy
I’m not a reasonable person. I’m a woman and I’m tired and I’m nervous, and I want to cry. —Mary Norton (Margaret Callahan)
A fairly routine whodunit story about a writer seeking the quiet refuge of a hotel that is closed for the winter, urged on by a bet with the hotel owner that he can’t write a novel in 24 hours, that is interesting only because this is the origin of the real Baldpate Inn in Estes Park, Colorado (www.baldpateinn.com), which opened in 1917, an old-fashioned inn at the foot of the Rocky Mountains that is now home of the world’s largest key collection, the website claims over 20,000, where customers are urged to donate some of their own keys to add to the collection, which now takes up an entire room. The mystery novel The Seven Keys to Baldpate was among the most popular novels of its day, written by Earl Derr Biggers in 1913 long before he invented his most famous character, Chinese detective Charlie Chan, which led subsequently to seven movies, and interestingly enough seven years before women were given the right to vote. Almost the entire film takes place inside a 2-story hotel, with a centrally located staircase off the main lobby, but also a secret staircase as well, along with hidden rooms. While supposedly given the “only key” to the hotel, mystery writer Billy Magee (Gene Raymond) discovers a host of mystery guests that secretly arrive with their own keys, each one adding to the intrigue and allure of an ongoing mystery, as all are interested in the $200,000 hidden in the hotel safe.
One by one, Magee politely introduces himself to each of the new arrivals, supposedly seven in all, that range from gangsters, girl friends, ghostly groundskeepers, to women in distress, all seeking something and all suspicious of everyone else’s motives. While there is never even a hint that this might all be a staged diversion by the publishers to guarantee they’ll win the bet, Magee appears to be the only one capable of maintaining any coherency about what’s going on, as otherwise clues are flying fast and furious. Adapted from the George M. Cohan play, the dialogue is rapid and oftentimes comic, used mostly to advance the plot which includes shootings and people jumping out windows, while the characters are overly stereotyped, especially the dumb gangsters, and the acting is abhorrent, with Raymond, who seems to speak with a foreign accent, always tilting his head like a puppy dog whenever something important registers. No one in the entire cast stands out except a brief early appearance by Walter Brennan as a desk clerk at the train station. There’s absolutely no directional flair exhibited whatsoever in this fairly standard and mediocre rendition of a house detective mystery, as there’s no building of any suspense and no expression of any fear or terror. It’s all too nonchalant, though one does appreciate the director’s love of characters peeking through ice frosted windows. By the time the police actually arrive on the scene, more bumbling even than the gangsters, they have a hard time finding the supposed missing corpse, but everything wraps up quickly and cleanly in about two minutes time, showing little more complexity than if this was a Silent era film.
