Charles Mortimer
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  • Early Life
  • Theatre
    • 1890 - 1899 >
      • The Winner 1894
      • East Lynne 1894
    • 1900 - 1909 >
      • The Silver King 1902
      • Manxman 1907
      • A Broken Heart 1909
      • Warning to Women 1909
    • 1910 - 1919 >
      • The Great Awakening 1910
      • Temptation 1911
      • Milestones 1912
      • Hush Money 1912
      • The White Slave Traffic 1913
      • Lead Business 1913
      • Mary of Scotland 1913
      • The Gambler 1913/14
      • The Lights O'London 1914
      • Anna Karenina 1914
      • For Russia 1915
      • What Happened to Jones 1915
      • Diplomacy 1915
      • The Man Who Stayed at Home 1916 - 17
      • Sinbad 1918
      • The Bear Leaders 1919
    • 1920 - 1924 >
      • Milestones 1920
      • Circumstances 1921
      • When Friends Fall Out 1921
      • The Voice of the Minaret 1921
      • Witching Willow 1922
      • A Bill of Divorcement 1922
      • Skittles 1923
      • The Cat's Paw 1923
      • The Edge O'Beyond 1923
      • Partner's Again 1924
      • Before Sunset 1924
      • Vendetta 1924
      • In The Next Room 1924
    • 1925 - 1929 >
      • The Rat 1925
      • Abraham Lincoln 1925
      • Sweet Pepper 1925
      • Paper Chase 1926
      • The White Heather 1926
      • South African Tour (Cape Town) 1926
      • Anne One Hundred Per Cent 1927
      • The Return 1927
      • The Dark Room 1927
      • Sadie Dupont 1927
      • Our Countess 1928
      • Young Woodley 1928
      • The Dictator 1928
      • The Moving Finger 1928
      • The First Performance 1928
      • Plans for the Coronation 1928
      • The Lady from the Sea 1928
      • Nearly... But Not Quite 1928
      • The Iron Law 1928
      • The Protectress 1929
      • Black St. Anthony 1929
      • Obsession 1929
      • Patterson 1929
      • Hold Everything 1929
      • The Subway 1929
      • Bitter Sweet 1929 (U.S.A)
    • 1930 - 1931 >
      • How To Be Healthy Though Married 1930
      • Who Knows 1930
      • Machines 1930
      • The Quaker 1930
      • Motives 1930
      • Merchant and Venus 1930
      • John Brown's Body 1931
      • Frailties 1931
      • Something Strange 1931
      • The Phoenix 1931
      • Tomorrow 1931
      • Sailors Do Care 1931
      • Make Up Your Mind 1931
      • Late Night Final 1931
      • Droit du Seigneur 1931
      • Miss Rose's Girl 1931
    • 1932 - 1934 >
      • Below the Surface 1932
      • Juarez and Maximillian 1932
      • Bewitched 1932
      • Red Triangle 1932
      • What You Like 1932
      • Rings On Her Fingers 1932
      • The Jack Pot 1932
      • Blood Royal 1932
      • Heritage 1932
      • Spacetime Inn 1932
      • The Silver Box 1932
      • Another Language 1932
      • One of Us 1933
      • Only a Mill Girl 1933
      • Wild Justice 1933
      • The Voice 1933
      • What Happened Then? 1933
      • A Corporal and a Man 1933
      • The Nineteenth Hole 1933
      • Before Sunset 1933
      • Acropolis 1933
      • Execution 1934
      • Living Dangerously 1934
      • Just Luck 1934
      • Dreams and Ditches 1934
    • 1935 - 1939 >
      • The Hooligan 1935
      • Murder Gang 1935
      • These Mortals 1935
      • Sauce for the Goose 1936
      • Tonight at Seven Thirty 1936
      • Miracle 1936
      • England Expects... 1936
      • Kind Lady 1936
      • Night Must Fall 1936
      • The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse 1936
      • The Script 1937
      • It's a Wise Child 1937
      • Marcia Gets Her Own Back 1937
      • Yang-Hi Treaty 1938
      • Oscar Wilde 1938
      • Take Heed 1938
      • St Joan 1939
      • Emperor of the World 1939
      • Drake 1939
      • I am the King 1939
      • Stay Just As You Are 1939
    • 1940 - 1944 >
      • As You Are 1940
      • The Death Trap 1940
      • Peril at End House 1940
      • Cottage To Let 1940
      • Goodnight Children 1941
      • Old Master 1942
      • Escort 1942
      • Warn That Man 1943
      • Lady from the Sea 1944
      • Michael and Mary 1944
      • The Case of the Frightened Lady 1944
    • 1945 - 1949 >
      • The Ringer 1945
      • ITMA 1945
      • The Case of the Frightened Lady 1945
      • The Apple Cart 1946
      • Droit et Seigneur 1946
      • Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide 1947
      • Closed for Cleaning, or, All the World's a Stage 1949
      • Every Picture Tells a Story 1949
    • 1950 - 1960 >
      • Yang-hi Treaty 1950
      • Mr Christian 1950
      • Albert 1951
      • Carousel 1952
      • Blind Alley 1956
  • Films
    • Bracelets 1931
    • A Safe Affair 1931
    • Watch Beverly 1932
    • You Made Me Love You 1933
    • The Warren Case 1934
    • Boomerang 1934
    • The Outcast 1934
    • The Return of Bulldog Drummond 1934
    • Evergreen 1934
    • Sometimes Good 1934
    • Things Are Looking Up 1935
    • The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes 1935
    • Sunshine Ahead 1935
    • Royal Cavalcade 1935
    • Old Roses 1935
    • The Price of a Song 1935
    • Birds of a Feather 1935
    • Discipline 1935
    • Someone at the Door 1936
    • Murder Gang 1936
    • The Small Man 1936
    • Living Dangerously 1936
    • The Mystery of the Marie Celeste 1936
    • Aren't Men Beasts 1937
    • Dead Men Are Dangerous 1939
    • Poison Pen 1939
    • The Ghost of St Michael's 1941
    • When We Are Married 1943
    • Theatre Royal 1943
    • The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943
    • No Highway 1951
    • Dial 999 1955
    • The Case of the Rue Morgue 1956
  • Radio and Television
    • 1920 - 1930 >
      • Nine O'Clock 1925
      • Brains Limited 1925
      • The Heel of Achilles 1925
      • Christopher Columbus 1925
      • Macbeth 1928
      • Sailors' Delight 1928
      • The Blue Bird 1928
      • The Test 1928
      • The Locked Chest 1929
      • St Joan 1929
      • The City 1929
      • Francesca da Rumini 1929
      • Hold Everything 1929
    • 1931 - 1940 >
      • The Forest 1931
      • Chinese Moon Party 1931
      • The Taming of the Shrew 1932
      • Love One Another 1932
      • Mr Petre 1933
      • Contrasts 1933
      • Captain of Kopenick 1933
      • Robert E Lee 1933
      • Three Trappers 1934
      • Verses 1935
      • Twelfth Night 1936
      • Bath and the Beau 1936
      • Doctor Clitterhouse 1936
      • Julius Caesar 1937
      • Bianca 1938
      • Death of an Artist 1938
      • The Kidnapped General 1938
      • Lucky Dip 1939
      • Macbeth 1939
      • Othello 1939
      • What Price Crime 1939
    • 1941 - 1950 >
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor 1943
      • The Story of a Stunner 1943
      • Her Majesty Desires, Master Shakespeare 1943
      • The Magistrate 1944
      • The Queen's Husband 1946
      • Outward Bound 1947
      • 1947 >
        • Room to Let 1947
        • Study in Arrogance 1947
        • Outward Bound 1947
        • The Octave of Jealousy 1947
        • Nothing Ever Happens to Some Girls 1947
        • The Pimlico Mystery 1947
        • The Story of Jonah 1947
        • The Clock 1947
        • Three Men in a Pub 1947
        • Kipps 1947
        • Worse Than Murder 1947
        • After All 1947
        • King Henry V 1947
        • The Love Child 1947
        • Lewes 1264 1947
        • Evesham 1265 1947
        • Lucy Arnold 1947
        • The Outstation 1947
        • The Voysey Inheritance 1947
        • Missing 1947
        • Tartuffe 1947
        • Dick Barton - Special Agent 1947
        • But the Woman Lost Her Life 1947
      • 1948 >
        • The Black Cap Has To Wait 1948
        • Whose Body 1948
        • Middle Class Murder 1948
        • Cornelius 1948
        • Success Story 1948
        • Simple Simon 1948
        • The Atom Bowler 1948
        • The Detection Club 1948
        • Error in the Universe 1948
        • Give Us This Day 1948
        • The Gentle People 1948
        • Fiat Justitiaj 1948
        • Slow Poison 1948
        • The Cloud and the Waltz 1948
        • The Constant Couple 1948
        • The Headswoman 1948
        • Scenes from the Booke of St Thomas More 1948
        • The Small Back Room 1948
        • Michael and Mary 1948
        • Last of the Legions 1948
        • The Water Gypsies 1948
        • Emmy 1948
        • Certain Alibi 1948
        • Koko 1948
        • The Warden 1948
        • Reunion 1948
        • Dead Reckoning 1948
        • Guilty, My Lord 1948
        • Young Chippie 1948
        • Crossed Stars 1948
        • The Late Mr Bannister 1948
        • The Case of the Glass Slipper and Wonderful Lamp 1948
      • 1949 - 50 >
        • Providence and the Guitar 1949
        • The Father Brown Mysteries 1949
        • The Father Brown Stories 1949
        • Caligula 1949
        • The Scarlet Pimpernel 1949
        • Possession 1949
        • Virginia Regina 1949
        • The Persecution of Bob Pretty 1949
        • Busman's Honeymoon 1949
        • Made in Heaven 1949
        • Chung Ling Soo 1949
        • Revolt in Ulania 1949
        • A House in the Square 1949
        • Mary Lovelace 1949
        • Endymion 1949
        • Four Just Men 1949
        • Egmont 1949
        • The Course of Justice 1949
        • Great Scott, Caroline! 1949
        • Frolic Wind 1949
        • Stepping Stone Inn 1949
        • The Constant Wife 1949
        • Macbeth 1949
        • The Skin Game 1949
        • Okay for Cash 1949
        • The Golden Bridegroom 1950
        • That's My Baby 1950
        • Rodney Stone 1950
        • His House in Order 1950
    • 1951 - 1960 >
      • The Lady from Denmark 1951
      • The Warden 1951
      • King Henry V 1952
      • This Is Show Business 1954
      • Fabian of the Yard 1955
      • The Counterfeit Plan 1957
      • Carry On Admiral 1958
      • You Are There 1958
  • Greta Wood/Charles Neil Mortimer
    • Charles Neil Mortimer >
      • Theatre career >
        • King Henry the Fifth 1852
        • Alice Wingold, the Pearl of London City 1862
        • Mazeppa 1862
        • Louis the Eleventh 1863
        • The White Gypsy 1865
        • The Sin and the Sorrow 1866
        • East Lynne 1866
        • Toilers on the Thames 1869
        • Clancarty 1876
        • A Winter’s Tale 1876
        • Miss Isabel McKenzie’s Powerful Dramatic Co. 1882
        • Brien McCullough’s “Self” Tour 1884
        • Queen’s Evidence/Bay of Biscay 1886
        • Mr Augustus Harris’s Tour 1887
        • Light O'Day 1891
        • The Orphan's Debut 1891
        • Fortune's Wheel 1891
        • Lady Audley's Secret 1892
        • Illgotten Gains 1892
        • The London Express 1892
        • Sweeney Todd, the Barber Murderer 1892
        • A Daughter of Eve 1893
        • Deep Shadows 1893
        • Self 1893
        • The Coiner 1893
        • The Lily and the Rose 1893
        • Nobbled 1894
        • East Lynne 1895
        • Old Chums 1895
        • England's Defenders 1895
        • Dark Shadows 1895
        • Light O'Day 1895
    • Greta Wood >
      • Theatre career >
        • 1900 - 1919 >
          • The Man Who Stayed at Home 1916
          • The Lady of Ostend 1916
          • The Headmaster 1916
          • The Glad Eye 1916
          • Little Lost Sister 1918
          • The Luck of the Navy 1919
        • 1920 - 1929 >
          • Paddy, the Next Best Thing 1920
          • The K.C 1921
          • The Edge O'Beyond 1923
          • The Rat 1925
          • The Dancing Queen 1926
          • The Flag Lieutenant 1926
          • The Oldest Profession 1926
          • Drink 1927
          • The Speckled Band 1927
          • Home Sweet Home 1927
          • Hobson's Choice 1928
          • Wake Up and Dream 1929
        • 1930 - 1939 >
          • Service 1932
          • Windfall 1934
          • Autumn 1937
          • Serena Blandish 1938
        • 1940 - 1949 >
          • The Jersey Lily 1940
          • Michael and Mary 1944
          • Madeleine 1944
          • Crooked Sapling 1944
          • Bill of Divorcement 1945
          • Jane Eyre 1946
          • Miss Mabel 1948
          • Fumed Oak 1948
          • Red Peppers 1948
          • Double Door 1948
        • 1950 - 1965 >
          • Early in the Year
          • Guilty 1951
          • Carousel 1951
          • The Big Window 1952
          • Jane Eyre 1953
          • The Return 1954
          • Come Back Peter 1954
          • The Deep Blue Sea 1954
          • Suspect 1955
          • Blind Alley 1956
          • The House by the Lake 1957
          • Time and Yellow Roses 1961
          • Saints' Day 1965
          • Sir Arthur Savile's Crime 1965
      • Film career >
        • Diana and Destiny 1916
        • No. 7 Brick Row 1922
      • Television career >
        • Jane Eyre 1946
        • What Every Woman Knows 1955
        • Nicholas Nickleby 1957
        • Our Mutual Friend 1958
        • The History of Mr Polly 1959
        • The Day After Tomorrow 1960
        • Late Summer Affair 1962
        • Z Cars 1964
        • A Tale of Two Cities 1965
        • Court Martial 1966
      • Radio >
        • Organising a Children's Party 1930
        • The Path of Glory 1932
        • No Plays of Japan 1933
        • Kagekiyo 1933
        • L'ami Fritz 1933
        • Strife 1933
        • Hindle Wakes 1945
        • They Went Singing 1946
        • The Jar 1956
        • I Am Barabbas 1957
      • Childrens' Entertainment
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From The Stage - Thursday 06 August 1936.
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From The Belfast News-Letter - Monday 10 August 1936.
Western Morning News - 8 August, 1936.

As the doctor, Ralph Richardson was exactly right, and others who distinguished themselves were Charles Farrell, Charles Mortimer, Victor Stanley, and Hugh E Wright."

The newspaper clipping to the right was found among memorabilia at my mother's house.

From The Western News 8 August, 1936.

A New Crime Play. If were not a known fact that crime does not pay, doubtless some our dramatists would change their profession. Certainly the ingenuity they display in constructing jobs " for their crooks to do on the stage would give even the police college something to think about if it were made use on the wrong side of the footlights. Mr. Barrie Lyndon, whose play " The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse " thrilled the audience at the Haymarket Theatre last night, shows us burglary in rehearsal and later in action which obviously comes very near to being the real thing as regards method. And very exciting it is. For reasons his own—not very credible ones, I am afraid—Dr. Clitterhouse becomes a succesful crook in his spare time. During the day he looks after your health and mine, but when night falls enters our houses and carries off the swag. And this criminal-doctor might easily have succeeded in his strange enterprise had he not decided to add murder his other hobbies. True, the murdered man was better out of the way, but that no excuse, and because the doctor has not been quite clever enough in getting rid of the body is at last found out. Nor is that all, for the audience is yet treated to a surprise which it would be unfair to state here, the secret of which not the most hardened playgoer could possibly have guessed. How Mr. Lyndon was to "end his play was the real problem, and he ended it in the most admirable way. As the doctor, Ralph Richardson was exactly right, and others who distinguished themselves were Charles Farrell, Charles Mortimer Victor Stanley, and Hugh E. Wright, At the fall of the curtain Mr. Richardson answer to the calls for the author declared that could not be found. After which he suggested that perhaps the author was helping create the applause. But this was not necessary, as the enthusiasm at the end was a sign of real appreciation for what will undoubtedly be a 
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From The Bystander - Wednesday 05 August 1936.
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Taken from The Sheffield Independent of 8 August, 1936.
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Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News - Friday 25 September 1936
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The Bystander - Wednesday 02 September 1936
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The Sphere - Saturday 15 August 1936
STAGE AND SCREEN The Theatre (taken from the Spectator 13 August 1936)

THE trouble about Dr. Clitterhouse is that he never existed, that we know he 'never existed, and that his adventures have accordingly only an academic ingenuity. How easily it might have been otherwise ! Mr. Lyndon's plot is roughly as follows : A young doctor, believing that crime has a physical as well as a psychological effect on its perpetrators, turns burglar in his spare time.' In the interests of science he records his own and his accomplices' reactions throughout a number of highly successful burglaries. When he has col- lected enough material he proposes to drop out of the game ; but a villainous " fence "—the only one of his associates who has discovered his identity—threatens blackmail, thus giving the doctor the chance to test his own reactions as' a practising murderer. He takes this chance, but fails for once to baffle the police. On the eve of arrest he tells all to an improbable K.C., and asks what are his chances of acquittal. The K.C. says they are excellent. Why ? Because Dr. Clitterhouse is obviously mad. The curtain falls on what is clearly intended as a happy ending ; but to at least one member of the audience much the most amazing thing about Dr. Clitterhouse was the almost hilarious equanimity with which he accepted the fate of a homicidal lunatic with a distinguished criminal record.

It may seem grudging to pick a quarrel with what is, as it stands, agreeable and mildly exciting entertainment. But how vastly the play would be improved if Dr. Clitterhouse were something more than a puppet, actuated by slender and recondite motives and immune to all human feelings save a vague and engagingly humorous anxiety. We are never con- vinced of his devotion to science, nor of his burglarious skill, nor of anything that is supposed to be his. Yet we so easily might have been. Suppose that what had started as a cool experiment had become an abiding passion. Suppose 'even that Dr. Clitterhouse's manner and aspect had in some degree reflected those symptoms which he was risking his liberty to diagnose. Suppose—but it is too much to bid Mr. Lyndon rewrite his play ; and it is doubtful whether there is any economic necessity for him to do so.

All the same, one would have liked Mr. Ralph Richardson to have had the chance of making the sawbones turned cut- purse something more than a disarming automaton. Some of the others have richer though smaller opportunities ; Mr. S. Victor Stanley brilliantly exploits the humours of a Cockney felon, while Mr. Charles Mortimer is excellently dour and dastardly as the fence. Mr. Charles Farrell and Mr. Hugh E. Wright also shine in the underworld.

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With kind permission of the Times.
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With kind permission of the Times, 23 July, 1936.
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Charles Mortimer played Benny Kellerman in "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse", at the Haymarket Theatre, London, from 6 August 1936 to 29 May 1937 and ....
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.... and the Savoy Theatre, London, from 1 June, 1937 to 16 October of that year.
PictureTaken from the Western Morning News and Daily Gazette on 8 August, 1936.
The Week's Theatres - The Guardian (with kind permission of the Guardian News & Media Ltd.) 


Haymarket.


"The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse." by Barre Lyndon. Produced by Claud Gurney.


The adjective in the title is just. For Mr. Lyndon is not making a timid declaration and offering to score a single trick in Queer Cards; he is out for the game. The audience must indeed be in gamesome spirit to accept his plot. There never was a taller story. But it is the sustained opinion of the British playgoer that a good crook justifies any yarn, and the fact remains that many plays of this type, which are impossible to think about, are easy and agreeable to watch. Dr Clitterhouse, with Mr. Ralph Richardson in his strangely vagrant shoes, is in this class of good company and he will remain with us, I imagine, until Christmas. His tale will not endure logical scrutiny, but it will stand up to box office test. For the story, which is absurd. is not propelled at us with too much seriousness, despite the blunder of beginning with darkness and solemn music as though we were doomed to an evening of high tradegy with Thames and Chieftains and battles-long-ago. The thing is an adventure in the country of Edgar not of William Wallace, and may be taken with all appropriate pinches of salt.


Dr Clitterhouse has a curious mind. He wants to know about the blood-pressure, respiration and so forth of criminals before and after the crime. So he becomes a criminal just to see, and finds the cracking of cribs as easy as the feeling of a pulse. It seems a trifle hard on the folk whose valuables he purloins that they (and/or the insurance companies) have to suffer so much that he should learn so little. You would have thought, having taken the jewels and his own blood-pressure in rapid succession, he would have retruned the former to their proper owners, science being satisfied. Nothing of the sort. Acting as the Robin Hood of St. John's Wood, he sells the sparklers and sends the proceeds to the Prisoners Aid or a constabular charity, thus robbing Peter to pay police orphans. At the same time he gets in with a gang, whose nefarious activities in Napoleonically commands in the looting of the city. They are a nice gang, at least, to observe at a safe distance, and their escapades in basement and on the tiles make first rate theatre.


Well-assorted,and well-presented by Messrs. Charles Mortimer, Charles Farrell, Victor Stanley, Hugh E Wright, and Miss Meriel Forbes, they are both directed and diagnosed by the amazing doctor, who has no sooner led them out of a tight corner than he is taking blood tests and peering down the ir throats in order to discover the reactions on the larynx of a rsiky night upon the roof. The formidable "fence", played by Mr. Mortimer, the artful dodgers of Messrs. Farrell and Stanley, and the very old "lag" played with exquisite frailty by Mr. Wright, make a fine team for Mr. Richardson to lead, and their scenes go splendidly. In the last act where the "fence" turns nasty, and Clitterhouse, swollen with success, resolves to get away with murder, is not only the tall end of a tall story, but a bit too steep for any acceptance. The tough comes to blackmail the doctor in his consulting room; he knows the doctor is up to all criminal practices, and he surely knows also that the doctor will have drugs on his premises. Almost at once the blackmailer asks his medical victim for a drink, and then does not even watch him mix it. well - I mean-ter-say, as Mr. Robey would remark.


Miss Joan Marion does her bit well in nurse's uniform, and Mr. Eric Stanley as a detective, helps to get the play started on right lines of gay escapade by his share in the excellent comedy of the first scene. It is not enough for Dr. Clitterhouse to be amazing; he must - so unlikely is his story - be amusing too. Mr. Ralph Richardson brings a personality essentially sane and solid to a tale that is freakish and fantastic. But he cleverly gives to this sanity a kind of whimsical twist; by a lift of the brow and a light in the eye he so tempers the measured gravity of his performance as to persuade us that the doctor might just possibly do these preposterous things. He is an actor of real star-quality, which means that you do not get tired of him however long he goes on. he does not just contribute finely to a play; he holds it together. In this case the play certainly needs a firm grasp and , fortunately, gets it.


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The Stage - Thursday 13 August 1936
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The Scotsman - Friday 07 August 1936
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The Bystander - Wednesday 19 August 1936
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Illustrated London News - Saturday 29 August 1936
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Other plays in the London West End can be seen above.
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