Highly uncommon vintage inscribed black fountain pen signature on a 2.5 x 4-inch portion of a green autograph album page, acquired in-person in the 1930s and decorated with a small magazine image. In good condition for its age. Note that the image of the star shown alongside the scan of the signature here is not actually included. Stocky, pinch-faced silent and early talkie character actor Purnell B. Pratt played characters on both sides of the moral fence, portraying no-nonsense inspectors, judges and attorneys, as well as merciless crime bosses and crooked politicos. He was memorable as The Stranger in the horror film The Gorilla (1930), the stern policeman father of criminal-in-the-making Tom Powers in Public Enemy (1931), the New York mayor in the Marx Brothers' Night at the Opera (1935), and district attorney Francis X. Markham in the Philo Vance mystery The Casino Murder Case (1935). His scores of other credits include the crime flicks The Spider (1931), Sinners' Holiday (1930), Scarface (1932), and A Shriek in the Night (1933).

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