Seven Keys to Baldpate is a 1913 play by George M. Cohan based on a novel by Earl Derr Biggers.
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Novelist Billy McGee makes a bet that he can write a 10,000 word story within 24 hours. He retires to a summer mountain resort in the dead of winter and locks himself in, believing he has the sole key. However he is visited during the night by a variety of other people, including a girl reporter and a gang of criminals.
The play premiered on Broadway on September 22, 1913 and ran for 320 performances.[1] Although a 1935 revival, starring Cohan in the lead, was less successful[2] it remains Cohan's most popular play.[3]
The play was filmed several times, which versions appearing in 1916 (from Australia), 1917 (starring Cohan himself), 1929 (with Richard Dix), 1935 (with Gene Raymond), 1947 and 1983 (as House of the Long Shadows). Television adaptations appeared in 1946 and 1961.
The play was also adapted for radio in 1938 (for Lux Radio Theatre with Jack Benny) and 1946 (for Theatre Guild on the Air with Walter Pidgeon).