Signed ephemera related to the 1935 M-G-M short dramatic film THE PERFECT TRIBUTE

(n.p.): (no publisher indicated). Near Fine. [1936]. Ephemera. [minor handling wear, tiny puncture near bottom of left margin, equally tiny stain in top margin]. (two B&W photographic portraits) A curious and uncommon piece of Hollywood ephemera, a suitable-for framing assemblage with three elements: the text of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, mounted together with two photographs of Charles "Chic" Sale -- one as he appeared in full makeup as Abraham Lincoln in the short dramatic film THE PERFECT TRIBUTE, adapted from the short story by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, directed by Edward Sloman, and produced and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in August 1935; the other a smaller portrait of Sale sans makeup. (The photos are both tipped onto the underlying backing, a piece of plain white stock measuring 9" x 12.5"; onto this is mounted a slightly smaller piece of better-quality paper, with cameo cut-outs for both the photos, leaving a narrow margin on all sides.) At the lower left corner of the piece is an INSCRIPTION that reads: "For / My friend / Charles King / Sincerely / Charles 'Chic' Sale / Aug. 17, 1936." My surmise is that this was something Sale put together as a self-promotional item, touting his atypical dramatic turn as Honest Abe (a former vaudevillian, at this stage of his life he was primarily engaged in playing "old man" character parts in the movies, even though he was only in his early 50s), rather than anything issued or authorized by M-G-M. (If it had been the latter, it almost certainly would bear the studio's logo; plus, the date of the inscription is a full year after the release date of the film.) Maybe Sale was trying to promote himself into a better class of character parts -- but if so, alas, it was too little, too late: less than three months after he inscribed this particular copy, he caught pneumonia and died. (If you're interested, by the way, THE PERFECT TRIBUTE can be viewed on YouTube. In a weird confluence, one of the actors with a small (uncredited) role in the film is the man who would soon become Hollywood's next go-to "old man" character actor: Walter Brennan.) Signed by Contributor .