Beyond rare vintage black fountain pen signature on a 4x5-inch light green autograph album page, acquired in-person by an inveterate New York City-based autograph hound in the late 1930s and affixed in later years to an 8.5 x 11-inch piece of white cardstock, beneath an image of Whale with Boris Karloff. The leaf itself is in good condition, with a light glue stain to the upper left-hand corner, well away from the writing, and some minor surface creases. While it cannot be peeled away from the cardstock, it can easily be trimmed out for matting and framing with a favorite photograph. Still, priced about $500 lower than general value. This is just the third example of Whale's autograph we have encountered in over 35 years. Brilliant, sensitive English film and theater director, and artist James Whale is beloved of horror, sci-fi and fantasy buffs for his immortal classics Frankenstein (1931), which is widely considered the finest horror film of all-time; The Old Dark House (1932); The Invisible Man (1933); and Bride of Frankenstein (1935).  Elsewhere, he is noted for Journey's End (1930), based upon the stage production of the same name, and the definitive film version of Show Boat (1936). Whale committed suicide by drowning in 1957, after years of living in obscurity and shunning fans, making his autograph one of the rarest of all sought out by horror collectors. 

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