Advertisement
 
00:00


Image source: Wikimedia Foundation (wikimedia.org)
Download Movie [Video Format: MP4]
Movie Source: Internet Archive (archive.org)
Advertisement
Advertisement

Seven Keys To Baldpate

1917

George M Cohan stars in the 1917 film of his play based on the often filmed Earl Derr Biggers novel.

Seven Keys to Baldpate is a 1917 American silent mystery/thriller film produced by George M. Cohan and distributed by Artcraft Pictures, an affiliate of Paramount.[1] The film is based on Cohan's play of the novel by Earl Derr Biggers. Cohan himself stars in this silent version along with Anna Q. Nilsson and Hedda Hopper, billed under her real name Elda Furry. One version of the play preceded this movie in 1916 and numerous versions followed in the succeeding decades such as the early RKO talkie starring Richard Dix.[2]
Seven Keys to Baldpate is an extant film with much home video availability.
Plot
As described in a film magazine,[5] George Washington Magee (Cohan) bets a companion $5,000 that he can write a bestseller in twenty-four hours. He goes to an isolated summer hotel in the mountains, receives the only key to the place, and sets about his task. Soon he is interrupted by complications as guests arrive, unexpected and uninvited, each with their own key to the deserted hotel. Two hundred thousand dollars gets deposited in the hotel safe, a young woman is shot, and, while the author holds the crooks at bay waiting for the police to arrive, they cook up a scheme to turn the tables on George. The woman's body disappears from the room, and the crooks are marched off to prison by U.S. Secret Service men. The caretaker returns the following night and congratulates the author on his success, and a lady reporter capitulates under the smiles of the industrious writer.
Cast
George M. Cohan as George Washington Magee
Anna Q. Nilsson as Mary Norton
Elda Furry as Myra Thornhill
Corene Uzzell as Mrs. Rhodes
Joseph W. Smiley as Mayor Cargan
Armand Cortes as Lou Max
Warren Cook as Thomas Hayden (credited as C. Warren Cook)
Purnell Pratt as John Bland
Frank Losee as Hall Bentley
Eric Hudson as Peter the Hermit
Carleton Macy as Police Chief Kennedy
Paul Everton as Langdon
Russell Bassett as Quimby
Robert Dudley as Clerk
4.00
George M Cohan

More Public Domain Movies