Falsely convicted of murder, young Robert Draper escapes custody during a practice blackout drill. Under cover of darkness, Draper hopes to find the real killer, who turns out to be a member of a Nazi sabotage ring. Completed shortly before America entered WW2.
12-31-1941
1h 16m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Ralph Murphy
Production:
Paramount Pictures
Key Crew
Story:
Curt Siodmak
Screenplay:
Lester Cole
Screenplay:
W.P. Lipscomb
Producer:
Sol C. Siegel
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Robert Preston
Robert Preston (June 8, 1918 – March 21, 1987) was an American stage and film actor and singer, best known for his collaboration with composer Meredith Willson and originating the role of Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 musical The Music Man and the 1962 film adaptation; the film earned him his first of two Golden Globe Award nominations. Preston collaborated twice with filmmaker Blake Edwards, first in S.O.B. (1981) and again in Victor/Victoria (1982). For portraying Carroll "Toddy" Todd in the latter, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 55th Academy Awards.
Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of a garment worker and a record store clerk. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School, training as a musician and playing several instruments, but quit at age sixteen to study acting at the Pasadena Community Playhouse.
Preston made his Broadway debut in 1940 in the play The Philadelphia Story. He went on to star in a number of successful Broadway musicals, including The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), and I Do! I Do! (1966). He also appeared in a number of films, including The Music Man (1962), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), and Victor/Victoria (1982).
Preston was a versatile actor who could play a wide range of roles. He was known for his charisma, his singing voice, and his comic timing. He was a two-time Tony Award winner and was nominated for an Academy Award. He was also a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Preston died of cancer in 1987 at the age of 68. He was survived by his wife, Catherine Craig; the couple had no children.
A biography of the actor, @Robert Preston - Forever The Music Man”, was published in 2022.
Eva Gabor (February 11, 1919 – July 4, 1995) was a Hungarian-born American actress and socialite. She is widely known for her role on Green Acres as Lisa Douglas. She voiced Duchess in The Aristocats as well as Miss Bianca in The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under.
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Thurston Hall (May 10, 1882 – February 20, 1958) was an American film actor. He appeared in 250 films between 1915 and 1957 and is probably best remembered for his portrayal, during the later stages of his career, of often pompous or blustering authority figures.
Hall's best-known television role was as Mr. Schuyler, the boss of Cosmo Topper (played by Leo G. Carroll), in the 1950s television series, Topper (1953–1956).
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Mary Treen (born Mary Louise Summers, March 27, 1907 – July 20, 1989) was an American film and television actress, a familiar face who brought levity to the screen. A minor actress for much of her career, she managed to secure a plain, unassuming niche for herself in the Hollywood of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
Early years
She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of attorney Don. C. Summers and actress Helene Sullivan Summers. In 1908, when Mary Louise was 11 months old, her mother sued her father for divorce on the grounds that he failed to provide for her. Her father died while she was an infant. She was reared in California by her mother and her stepfather, a physician. Treen attended the Westlake School for Girls and a convent where she tried out successfully in school plays.
Career
During her career, Treen was seen in over 40 films. Among her film roles were Tilly, the secretary of the Building and Loan, in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and the role of Pat in the drama Kitty Foyle (1940) starring Ginger Rogers.
Her longest-running role was as Hilda, the maid and baby nurse, in 64 episodes from 1962 to 1965 of the NBC and CBS sitcom The Joey Bishop Show. Earlier, in the 1954–1955 season, she was cast in thirty-eight episodes as Emily Dodger on the CBS sitcom Willy.
Death
Treen died of cancer in Newport Beach, California, July 20, 1989. She was 82. Her only survivors were distant cousins. One of her cousins was actor Mort Mills.
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Joseph Edward Bromberg (born Josef Bromberger, December 25, 1903 – December 6, 1951) was a Romanian-born American character actor in motion picture and stage productions dating mostly from the 1930s and 1940s. By virtue of his physique, the short, somewhat rotund actor was destined to play secondary roles. Bromberg made his stage debut at the Greenwich Village Playhouse and in 1926 made his first appearance in a Broadway play, Princess Turandot. The following year, Bromberg married Goldie Doberman, with whom he had three children.
Occasionally credited as J.E. Bromberg' and Joseph Bromberg, he performed secondary roles in 35 Broadway productions and 53 motion pictures until 1951. For two decades, Bromberg was highly regarded in the New York theatrical world and was a founding member of the Civic Repertory Theatre (1928–1930) and of the Group Theatre (1931–1940).
Bromberg made his screen debut in 1936 under contract to Twentieth Century-Fox. The versatile actor played a wide variety of roles ranging from a ruthless New York newspaper editor (in Charlie Chan on Broadway) to a despotic Arabian sheik (in Mr. Moto Takes a Chance). Although he spoke with no trace of an accent, he was often called upon to play humble immigrants of various nationalities. When Warner Oland, the actor who played Charlie Chan, died in 1938, Fox considered Bromberg as a suitable replacement, but the role ultimately went to Sidney Toler. Fox began loaning Bromberg to other studios in 1939 and finally dropped him from the roster in 1941. He kept working for various producers, including a stint at Universal Pictures in the mid-1940s.
Bromberg's most outstanding attribute was his facility with sensitive character roles; he could take a standard, undistinguished supporting part and make it unforgettably sympathetic. In Hollywood Cavalcade he portrays Don Ameche's friend who knows he will never get the girl; in Three Sons he is the lowly business associate who longs to be given a partnership; in Easy to Look At he is the once-great couturier now reduced to night watchman.
In September 1950, the anti-communist magazine Red Channels accused Bromberg of being a member of the American Communist Party. Subpoenaed to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in June 1951, Bromberg refused to answer any questions in accordance with his Fifth Amendment rights.
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Spencer Charters (March 25, 1875 – January 25, 1943) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 220 films between 1920 and 1943, mostly in small supporting roles. Spencer Charters first stage work soon after leaving school was a walk on part, but it wasn't long before he was being given fair-sized roles. He played on Broadway between 1910 and 1929 and was a busy character actor in films during the 1930s and early 1940s. He often portrayed somewhat befuddeled judges, doctors, clerks, managers, and jailers.
He died by suicide from a mix of sleeping pills and carbon monoxide poisoning.
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Cyrus Willard Kendall (March 10, 1898 – July 22, 1953) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 140 films between 1935 and 1950.
Kendall's heavy-set, square-jawed appearance and deep voice were perfect for wiseguy roles such as policemen and police chiefs, wardens, military officers, bartenders, reporters, and mobsters.
He was born in St. Louis, Missouri and died in Woodland Hills, California.
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Edward Russell Hicks (June 4, 1895 – June 1, 1957) was an American film actor.
Born in 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland, Hicks appeared in nearly 300 films between 1915 and 1956. His first appearance was an uncredited role in The Birth of a Nation (1915). He often appeared as a smooth-talking confidence man, as in the W.C. Fields film The Bank Dick (1940). Distinguished, suave and a consummate actor, Hicks played a variety of judges, corrupt officials, businessmen and attorneys, working in a variety of mediums almost until his death. Hicks appeared once in the syndicated western television series The Cisco Kid as an uncle of the Gail Davis character, whom he threatens to disinherit if she marries a known gangster.
He died in Los Angeles, California, from a heart attack.
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Paul Stanton (1884-1955) was an American character actor and bit-part player in American films.
Originally from Illinois, he appeared in about 130 films between 1918 and 1952, mostly in supporting roles. He often portrayed authoritarian figures like judges, attorneys, managers, officials and doctors.
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Clem Bevans (October 16, 1879 – August 11, 1963) was an American character actor best remembered for playing eccentric, grumpy old men.
Bevans had a very long career, starting in vaudeville in 1900 in an act with Grace Emmett. He progressed to burlesque, Broadway, and even light opera, before making his film debut at the age of 55 in Way Down East (1935). His portrayal was so good, he became stereotyped and played mostly likable old codgers for the rest of his life. Bevans played the neighbour of Gregory Peck in The Yearling and the gatekeeper in Harvey (1950). However, he did occasionally play against type, for example as a Nazi spy in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942). He also made some television appearances, including the role of murderer Captain Hugo in the 1958 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Demure Defendant" and as Pete in The Twilight Zone episode "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" (1962). He played Captain Cobb in Disney's TV miniseries Davy Crockett.
His first cousin was actress Merie Earle, best known as Maude Gormley on The Waltons.
Edwin Maxwell was born on February 9, 1886 in Dublin, Ireland. He was an actor, known for Scarface (1932), The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and His Girl Friday (1940). He was previously married to Betty Alden. He died on August 13, 1948 in Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA.
Sam Ash was born on August 28, 1884 in Campbell County,Kentucky, USA. He was an actor, known for Unmasked (1929), Kiss and Make-Up (1934) and The Heat's On (1943). He died on October 20, 1951 in Hollywood, California, USA.
John Banner (Height: 6 feet 1 inch [1.85 meters]), born Johann Banner on January 28, 1910, was an Austrian-American actor who achieved lasting fame for his portrayal of the bumbling German Sergeant Hans Schultz in the beloved sitcom Hogan's Heroes (1965-1971).
Banner was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine). He studied acting at the prestigious Reinhardt Seminar and began his career on the Viennese stage. In 1938, with the rise of the Nazis, Banner, a Jew, fled Austria for the United States.
After arriving in America, Banner struggled to find work in his chosen profession. He took on odd jobs to make ends meet while continuing to pursue his passion for acting. Eventually, he began landing small roles in Hollywood films, often playing stereotypical Germans.
In 1965, Banner landed the role of Sergeant Schultz in the CBS sitcom Hogan's Heroes. The show was set in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II and followed the exploits of a group of American officers led by Colonel Robert Hogan (Bob Crane). Banner's portrayal of Schultz, the guard who was always "seeing nothing" and "hearing nothing" while the prisoners tunneled out of the camp or conducted other escapades, was a comedic highlight of the show.
Banner's comedic timing and delivery of the catchphrases "I see nothing!" and "I know nothing!" endeared him to audiences around the world. He remained with the show for its entire six-season run, becoming synonymous with the role of Sergeant Schultz.
After Hogan's Heroes ended in 1971, Banner continued to act, appearing in guest roles on various television shows. He also returned to the stage, performing in a number of productions.
In 1973, Banner died of a heart attack while visiting Vienna. He was 63 years old.
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Monte Blue (January 11, 1887 – February 18, 1963) was a movie actor who began his career as a romantic leading man in the silent film era, and later progressed to character roles.
Blue was born as Gerard Montgomery Bluefeather in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father was half French, half Cherokee Indian. One of five children, his father died and his mother could not raise five children alone. Along with another brother, they both admitted to the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's Home. This did not stop him working his way through to Purdue University.
When growing up, Blue built up his physique to become a football player (he grew to six feet three inches tall). He not only played football, but he was also a fireman, railroad worker, coal miner, cowpuncher, ranch hand, circus rider, lumberjack, and finally, a day laborer at the studios of D. W. Griffith.
He had no theatrical experience when he came to the screen. In his first movie, The Birth of a Nation (1915), he was a stuntman and an extra in the movie. In his next movie, he starred in another small part in the movie, Intolerance (1916). Gradually moving to supporting roles for both D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, Blue earned his breakthrough role as Danton in Orphans of the Storm, starring sisters, Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish. Then he rose to stardom as a rugged romantic lead along with top leading actresses such as Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson, and Norma Shearer. His most prolific female screen partner was Marie Prevost with whom he made several films in the mid 20s at Warner Brothers. Blue's finest silent screen performance was as the alcoholic doctor who finds paradise in MGM's White Shadows in the South Seas (1928). Blue became one of the few silent stars to survive the talkie revolution. However, he lost his investments in the stock market crash of 1929.
He rebuilt his career as a character actor, working until his retirement in 1954. One of his more memorable roles was the sheriff in Key Largo. He divorced his first wife in 1923 and married Tova Jansen in 1924. He had two children, Barbara Ann and Richard Monte. During the later part of his life, Monte Blue was an active Mason and the advance man for the Hamid-Morton Shrine Circus; while on business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he had a heart attack because of complications from influenza, dying at age 76.
Monte Blue has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6286 Hollywood Blvd.
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Stanley Blystone (August 1, 1894 – July 16, 1956) was an American film actor who made more than 500 film appearances between 1924 and 1956. Blystone is best known for his appearance in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, playing Paulette Goddard's father, and several short films starring The Three Stooges. Some of his more memorable roles were in the films Half Shot Shooters, False Alarms, Goofs and Saddles, Three Little Twirps and Slaphappy Sleuths. His final appearance with the trio was Of Cash and Hash in 1955. He also appeared in several Laurel and Hardy films.
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Wade Boteler (October 3, 1888 – May 7, 1943) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 430 films between 1919 and 1943. He was born in Santa Ana, California, and died in Hollywood, California from a heart attack.
On Broadway, Boteler appeared in the play The Silent Voice (1914).
Ralph Dunn was an American film, television, and stage actor.
Dunn was born in Titusville, Pennsylvania and spent early years living with relatives in Canton, Illinois. Dunn's father was a veterinarian for the U.S. Army during WWI, and his mother was an actress. Dunn was enrolled briefly at the University of Pennsylvania, but left after one day to join a Vaudeville troupe.
Ralph Dunn used his burly body and rich, theatrical voice to good effect in hundreds of minor feature-film roles and supporting appearances in two-reel comedies. He came to Hollywood during the early talkie era, beginning his film career with 1932's The Crowd Roars.
A large man with a withering glare, Dunn was an ideal "opposite" for short, bumbling comedians. A frequent visitor to the Columbia short subjects unit, Dunn showed up in the Three Stooges comedies Mummy's Dummies, as well as Who Done It? and its remake, For Crimin' Out Loud
Dunn kept busy into the 1960s, appearing in such TV series as Kitty Foyle, and Norby and such films as Black Like Me.
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Edward Earle (16 July 1882 – 15 December 1972) was a Canadian-American stage, film and television actor. In a career which lasted from the early 1900s to 1966, he appeared in almost 400 films between 1914 and 1956. He was born in Toronto and died in Los Angeles, aged 90.
George Edwin Eldredge (September 10, 1898 – March 12, 1977) was an American actor who appeared in over 180 movies during a career that stretched from the 1930s to the early 1960s. He also had a prolific television career during the 1950s. He was the older brother of actor John Dornin Eldredge.
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Julia Faye was born on September 24, 1893 in Richmond, Virginia, USA. She was an actress, known for The Ten Commandments (1956), Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). She died on April 6, 1966 in Hollywood, California, USA.
She appeared in more Cecil B. DeMille movies than any other actress. She appeared in many of his silents, and in every one of his movies from Union Pacific (1939) on. She was Cecil B. DeMille's mistress off-screen for quite some time. The devoted DeMille kept her employed in bit parts long after her career (and their relationship) was over. Off-screen, she was known to be a highly skilled horsewoman.
Like many of her contemporaries, her home in Hollywood contained a Chinese room, filled with oriental art objects.
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Bess Flowers (November 23, 1898 – July 28, 1984) was an American actress. By some counts considered the most prolific actress in the history of Hollywood, she was known as "The Queen of the Hollywood Extras," appearing in over 700 movies in her 41 year career.
Born in Sherman, Texas, Flowers's film debut came in 1923, when she appeared in Hollywood. She made three films that year, and then began working extensively. Many of her appearances are uncredited, as she generally played non-speaking roles.
By the 1930s, Flowers was in constant demand. Her appearances ranged from Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford thrillers to comedic roles alongside of Charley Chase, the Three Stooges, Leon Errol, Edgar Kennedy, and Laurel and Hardy.
She appeared in the following five films which won the Academy Award for Best Picture: It Happened One Night, You Can't Take it with You, All About Eve, The Greatest Show on Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. In each of these movies, Flowers was uncredited. Including these five movies, she had appeared in twenty-three Best Picture nominees in total, making her the record holder for most appearances in films nominated for the award. Her last movie was Good Neighbor Sam in 1964.
Flowers's acting career was not confined to feature films. She was also seen in many episodic American TV series, such as I Love Lucy, notably in episodes, "Lucy Is Enceinte" (1952), "Ethel's Birthday" (1955), and "Lucy's Night in Town" (1957), where she is usually seen as a theatre patron.
Outside her acting career, in 1945, Bess Flowers helped to found the Screen Extras Guild (active: 1946-1992, then merged with SAG), where she served as one of its first vice-presidents and recording secretaries.
John Rummel Hamilton was an American actor, who played in many movies and television programs. He is probably best remembered for his role as the blustery newspaper editor Perry White for the 1950s television program “Adventures of Superman.”
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Guy Edward Hearn (September 6, 1888 – April 15, 1963) was an American actor who, in a forty-year film career, starting in 1915, played hundreds of roles, starting with juvenile leads, then, briefly, as leading man, all during the silent era.
With the arrival of sound, he became a character actor, appearing in scores of productions for virtually every studio, in which he was mostly unbilled, while those credits in which he was listed reflected at least nine stage names, most frequently Edward Hearn, but also Guy E. Hearn, Ed Hearn, Eddie Hearn, Eddie Hearne, and Edward Hearne.
Al Hill (July 14, 1892 – July 14, 1954) was an American film character actor who appeared in over 320 films between 1927 and 1954, including the 1951 film The Girl on the Bridge. Hill died in 1954 on his 62nd birthday.
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Frederick Alvin Kelsey (August 20, 1884 – September 2, 1961) was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. Kelsey directed one- and two-reel films for Universal Film Manufacturing Company. He appeared in more than 400 films between 1911 and 1958, often playing policemen or detectives. He also directed 37 films between 1914 and 1920. Kelsey was caricatured as the detective in the 1943 MGM cartoon Who Killed Who? directed by Tex Avery. He was born in Sandusky, Ohio and died at the Motion Picture Country Home in Hollywood, California, aged 77.
Patrick McVey was born on March 17, 1910 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as Patrick McVeigh. He was an actor, known for Big Town (1950), Manhunt (1959) and North by Northwest (1959). He was married to Courteen Landis. He died on July 6, 1973 in New York City, New York.
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Charles Francis "Frank" Moran (18 March 1887–14 December 1967) was an American boxer and film actor who fought twice for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, and appeared in over 135 movies in a 25 year film career.
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Jack Norton (September 2, 1882 – October 15, 1958) was an American stage and film character actor who appeared in 184 films between 1934 and 1948, often playing drunks, although in real life he was a teetotaler.
Career
Jack Norton was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 2, 1882.
In his early career he had a vaudeville comedy act with his wife Lillian Healy. Norton made his Broadway debut in 1925 in that year's edition of Earl Carroll's Vanities, and also appeared in Florida Girl, which was produced and staged by Carroll.
Norton's first film work was for a musical short, School for Romance, in 1934, in which a young Betty Grable appeared, but his scenes were deleted. His work survived to reach the screen in his next assignment, The Super Snooper, a comedy short, and in his third film, his first full-length movie, Finishing School, which featured Frances Dee, Billie Burke, Ginger Rogers and Bruce Cabot, Norton played a drunk, setting the pattern for many of his future performances. Although he also played stone sober characters as well, he was best known for his inebriated characterizations, and he improved his work by following genuine drunks around, picking up behavioral tips.
Norton worked continuously and consistently, sometimes appearing in as many as 20 films in one year, although many of his performances went uncredited. One of the few times he was credited as part of the main cast was in 1945 for the film A Guy, a Gal and a Pal In the 1940s, Norton was part of Preston Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors, appearing in five films written and directed by Sturges. He is perhaps best known to modern audiences as A. Pismo Clam, the drunken film director whom W.C. Fields is hired to replace in The Bank Dick (1940).
In 1947, Norton retired from films due to illness, his last appearance being in Alias a Gentlemen, which was released in 1948, although he did make some live television appearances in the early 1950s.
Jack Norton's final appearance would have been in the 1956 episode of The Honeymooners entitled "Unconventional Behavior", but age and infirmity had so overwhelmed him that he was literally written out of the show as it was being filmed, though Jackie Gleason saw to it that Norton was paid fully for the performance he was ready, willing, but unable to give.
Norton died on October 15, 1958 in Saranac Lake, New York at the age of 76. He is buried in Sacred Hearts Cemetery in Southampton, New York on Long Island.
Frank O'Connor was an American screen and television actor, as well as a director, screenwriter, and producer. His lengthy film acting career began in 1915.
Ted Oliver was born on February 2, 1892 in Henderson, Kentucky, USA. He was an actor, known for Modern Times (1936), The Buccaneer (1938) and She Loved a Fireman (1937). He was married to Ilean Hume. He died on June 30, 1957 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Lee Phelps (May 15, 1893 – March 19, 1953) was an American film actor. He appeared in over 600 films between 1917 and 1953, mainly in uncredited roles. He also appeared in three films - Grand Hotel, You Can't Take It with You, and Gone with the Wind - that won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Phelps appeared in the 1952 episode "Outlaw's Paradise" as a judge in the syndicated western television series The Adventures of Kit Carson, starring Bill Williams in the title role. He also appeared in a 1952 TV episode (#90) of The Lone Ranger.
Francis Sayles was born on November 22, 1891 in Buffalo, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Black Legion (1937), The Purple Vigilantes (1938) and Midnight Phantom (1935). He died on March 19, 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
Richard Webb (September 9, 1915 – June 19, 1993) was a film, television and radio actor. He was born in Bloomington, Illinois.
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