Interesting and nice, but rather slow and with no thrill, and unfortunately no comedy: a generous amount of good comedy, and maybe just a hint of slapstick, would have made a great play out of it. I'd like a movie like that, they're not making good comedies anymore. A lot of good actions, and that's it. I can't wait to see comedy back into fashion!
As I was saying, though, there is no comedy in here at all. A couple of short action-scenes, and the rest should be a mystery but it's so slow... I liked the female characters though: good and rather modern!
The story: the Baldpate Inn, on top of Baldpate Mountain, opens in Summers but stay close in winters. It's almost Christmas, and the Inn is the most solitary place in the world. For this reason William Magee chooses it for his "retreat". He is a writer, and he seeks absolute solitude to write a great story full of heart and soul. He gets a key from the Inn's owner's son. Magee has been there but an hour when other people start arriving. First Mr Bland, who has a gun and who hides something in the hotel safe (he has secured a key from the Inn's manager); then Professor Bolton whose key was given to him by the owner himself. Pretty Miss Norton and her nothing-alike-mother have a key, but maybe it was stolen. Four keys until now.
Mr Cargan, the mayor of the near town of Reuton, comes with "his shadow" Lou Max (five). Already at this point things start to move. Miss Norton tells a more-in-love-by-the-minute Magee that there are 200.000 dollars in that safe and she must have it. When Cargan and Max are about to go away with the money, a mysterious figure stops them, but Magee surprises him too and runs away with the money. Right there and then in comes Miss Thornhill (six) and he's confused as to what he should do with the money. It's not her beauty that confuses him but the fact that she comes with his friend's recommendation and assurance that she can trust Magee and he'll help her. So Magee hides the money until he has time to think, but Bolton sees where and takes it, but Bland catches him with the bundle in his hands and takes it from him. Suddenly Mr Hayden comes (with no key) saying it's his money and he wants it back, but that bribe-money were promised to Cargan, who won't give it up. Bolton has again the bundle (taken from the hands of "the hermit of Baldpate" now working as their cook) and Magee knows it. Again a fight with the mysterious man and Magee's ready to give it to Miss Norton, when Hayden threatens him with a gun, but in comes the seventh key's holder, the mysterious figure, Mr Kendrick who has spent six years hiding abroad because tricked by Hayden, who now commits suicide. Kendrick is reunited with Miss Thornhill who waited for him all this time. Magee takes the gun and keeps them all there until Miss Norton is safely away with the money. He now learns the whole story of the corrupt mayor, Hayden that wanted to bribe him, Bolton working for justice and wanted the money as proof against him... but nobody knows who Miss Norton really is. Morning comes and they all go away to Reuton, where they discover the truth. She's a journalist and a sensational article condemns all the sordid story of the bribe. Happy that she was on the good-side, Magee professes again his love and wins her over, quite happy that he did not find the solitude he had looked for at the Baldpate Inn.
Now, the whole point of taking the money was somehow stupid on those who were on the honest side: how can a bundle of money with nothing specific about it be a proof that Hayden wanted to bribe a very happy-to-be-bribed mayor? It's just money, it could come from everywhere! So you see it makes no sense at all, but it could have make a good comedy, since the mystery was so disappointing.
What a shame it wasn't.
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