10.25x8

Charles ‘Hutch’ Hutchison Silent Era-Pioneer Stuntman Actor, DirectorPathe Studios-10.25″x 8″ Charles Hutchison, who went by ‘Hutch’ and starred in a string of serials with that name in the title, went to great lengths to provide realistic stunts in his action/adventure movie shorts, especially. What some call brave, others call stupid and after one stunt the studios stepped in and curtailed his ridiculously dangerous exploits. In that stunt, he jumped from a collapsing oil derrick on to the top of a 60 foot pine tree. He missed his target and fell through the branches to the ground, breaking both of his ankles. This was the accident that caused the studios to ban their ‘bankable’ stars from taking such dangerous, and potentially expensive, risks.Here’s the stunts included in just one of his movies. “Hutchison’s second lead role, for which he now received headliner status in the advance publicity, was in the serial “The Great Gamble,” also written and directed by Joseph A. Golden and distributed by Pathé. Hutch performed his own stunts, which were even more daring than in “Wolves of Kultur.” Among these were diving into a river from the top of a 135-foot-high grain elevator; jumping from the roof of an 80-foot-high building across a 14-foot alley to another roof twelve feet lower; wrestling with a black bear; leaping into the ocean from an airplane; swinging on a rope around the corner of a building and into an open fourth-story window; and riding a motorcycle at 70 mph to make a leap across a 25-foot gap in a broken bridge. All this was done with virtually no camera tricks.”There are a few of his stunts available for viewing on youtube and elsewhere. This photo is one of Hutchison’s official head shots for Pathe Studios, and that is typed on the reverse. Interestingly , there is a list written in red pencil there also. A list with some interesting names:LloydRogers DeitzVidorBlueMurphySome very important last names from that particular era, a couple I still have to look up!