Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18702
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Barton MacLane works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Barton MacLane appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Barton. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, music, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Anthony Mann, John Huston, Kurt Neumann and others, Barton MacLane helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) as Pat McCormick · The Maltese Falcon (1941) as Lt. of Detectives Dundy · High Sierra (1941) as Jake Kranmer
Career snapshot
Ranked #18702 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
1935–1954
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Most frequent director
John Huston
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With John Huston
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 34m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.4
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1950s
6.7 average MV
The 1950s are where the work and the material meet. The Glenn Miller Story — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1950s
6.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1950s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Prince and the Pauper, You Only Live Once, The Walking Dead.
Most productive era
1940s
9 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.54 films | 7.03 films | 6.71 film |
| Action | — | 6.53 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.02 films | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.51 film | — |
| Crime | 6.53 films | 7.22 films | — |
| Romance | 6.81 film | 6.31 film | 6.71 film |
| Horror | 6.31 film | 6.32 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1935'G' Men
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Collins.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1948The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as General Arnold.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
14 of 14 films
as Pat McCormick
Directed by John Huston
as Lt. of Detectives Dundy
Directed by John Huston
as Stephen Whitney
Directed by Fritz Lang
as General Arnold
Directed by Anthony Mann
as Sam Higgins
Directed by Victor Fleming
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Pat McCormick
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Pat McCormick gives Barton MacLane a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lt. of Detectives Dundy
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Performance score7.6
The Maltese Falcon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lt. of Detectives Dundy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Stephen Whitney
You Only Live Once (1937)
Performance score7.2
You Only Live Once asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stephen Whitney is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
General Arnold
The Glenn Miller Story (1954)
Performance score6.9
The Glenn Miller Story asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. General Arnold is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Pat McCormick
Start here. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is the clearest statement of what Barton MacLane does — accessible, 126 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Barton at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
You Only Live Once (1937)
Keeps the drama register of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Keeps the crime register of You Only Live Once but asks for a colder reading of it.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
A deliberate change of key after The Maltese Falcon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Glenn Miller Story (1954)
Keeps the drama register of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
William Keighley
Director
2 films together
Notably The Prince and the Pauper
Fritz Lang
Director
2 films together
Notably You Only Live Once
Kurt Neumann
Director
2 films together
Notably Tarzan and the Amazons
John Huston
Director
2 films together
Notably The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Michael Curtiz
Director
1 film together
Notably The Walking Dead
Raoul Walsh
Director
1 film together
Notably High Sierra
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Vincent Sherman
Director
1 film together
Notably All Through the Night
Reginald Le Borg
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mummy's Ghost
Anthony Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably The Glenn Miller Story
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Huston
Director
2 films together · 7.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Treasure of the Sierra MadreFritz Lang
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
You Only Live OnceWilliam Keighley
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Prince and the PauperKurt Neumann
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Tarzan and the AmazonsRaoul Walsh
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
High SierraAnthony Mann
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Glenn Miller StoryVincent Sherman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All Through the NightVictor Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeMichael Curtiz
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Walking DeadReginald Le Borg
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Mummy's GhostSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Pat McCormick
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Glenn Miller Story
as General Arnold
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Pat McCormick
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
All Through the Night
as Marty Callahan
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Pat McCormick
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Barton MacLane has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Drama Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in drama, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Maltese Falcon
as Lt. of Detectives Dundy
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Maltese Falcon
as Lt. of Detectives Dundy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Glenn Miller Story
as General Arnold
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Maltese Falcon
as Lt. of Detectives Dundy
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Pat McCormick
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Pat McCormick
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Pat McCormick
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Mummy's Ghost
as Inspector Walgreen
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Barton MacLane performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
