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Trying to win a wager against his friend Bentley (Crauford Kent) that he can write a 10,000 word novel in 24 hours, writer William Magee (Richard Dix) goes to Baldpate Inn, the loneliest place in winter since it's strictly a hotel for summer tourists - plus Magee has the only key to the place ... or so he thinks, as soon enough a wide assortment of people arrive at the hotel, all believing they've got the only key to the place, starting with Bland (Alan Roscoe), a crook who hides a large sum of money in the hotel safe, journalist Mary Norton (Miriam Seegar), whom Magee instantly falls in love with, her chaperone Mrs. Rhodes (Nella Walker), who's incidently the fiancée of mayor Cargan (DeWitt Jennings), another one who arrives at Baldpate in, together with his henchman Max (Joseph William Herbert jr), then there's also railway president Hayden (Lucien Littlefield) and Myra (Margaret Livingston), who claims to be his wife but isn't. And there's also Peters (Joseph Allen sr), an eccentric hermit with the talent to mix up things - and everybody's after the money in the safe of course, that's meant as a bribe from Hayden to the mayor for a lucrative railroad deal. Magee, who has no stake in the whole affair, sees to it that Mary gets the money to prove her claim concerning the mayor's corruption while he holds the others at gunpoint - but ultimately a greedy sheriff (Carleton Macy) further complicates things, as does Mrs. Rhodes, wanting to exonerate her husband-to-be ... until ultimately the whole thing turns out to be a prank played on Magee, then not real at all but merely the novel Magee has written in his 24 hour solitude.

Compared to the novel by Earl Derr Biggers, this film of a mere 72 minutes feels very much like a Readers Digest version, but it manages to carry over the self irony and high spirited approach - and for an early talkie, this movie feels very lively indeed, even though the story is reduced to a mere handful of locations and has an unmistakably theatrical feel to it (so it comes as no surprise it's also based on George M. Cohan's stage adaptation of Biggers' book). But poignant dialogue and on-the-spot performances with a comedic edge see to it that this adaptation (already the fourth cinematic adaptation by the time it came out) really manages to entertain.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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