Seven Keys to Baldpate (play)

He retires to a summer mountain resort named Baldpate Inn, in the dead of winter, and locks himself in, believing he has the sole key.

However he is visited during the night by a rapid succession of other people (melodrama stock types), including a corrupt politician, a crooked cop, a hermit, a feisty girl reporter, a gang of criminals, etc., none of whom have any trouble getting into the remote inn—there appear to be seven keys to Baldpate.

He eventually foils a plot by the crooks to steal money from the hotel safe that is earmarked for a city street railroad deal, and he falls in love with the reporter.

In the epilogue, the inn is empty, and a typewriter is clattering upstairs: Magee has finished his story before midnight and won the bet.

[5] The play was filmed several times, with versions appearing in 1916 (from Australia), 1917 (starring Cohan himself), 1925 (with Douglas MacLean), 1929 (with Richard Dix), 1935 (with Gene Raymond), 1947 (with Phillip Terry), and 1983 (as House of the Long Shadows).