Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#76480
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Davison Clark 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.
Davison Clark appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Davison. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Cecil B. DeMille, Howard Hawks, René Clair and others, Davison Clark 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.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) as Committeeman (uncredited) · Red River (1948) as Mr. Meeker (uncredited) · Duck Soup (1933) as Minister of Finance #2 (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #76480 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1931–1949
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Most frequent director
Cecil B. DeMille
5 films together
Longest collaboration
5×
With Cecil B. DeMille
Most common genre
Romance
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 51m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
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
6.5
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
1930s
6.8 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. Union Pacific, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jezebel — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.8
Across 8 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.1
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. Union Pacific, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jezebel.
Most productive era
1930s
8 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.86 films | 6.52 films |
| Action | — | 6.32 films |
| Comedy | 7.03 films | 6.51 film |
| Romance | 6.65 films | 6.44 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1931Dishonored
Where our catalogue meets this career.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1939Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
7.5 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 Merchant Prince.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Committeeman (uncredited)
Directed by Frank Capra
as Mr. Meeker (uncredited)
Directed by Howard Hawks
as Minister of Finance #2 (uncredited)
Directed by Leo McCarey
as Deputy Sheriff (uncredited)
Directed by William Wyler
as Marcin
Directed by Richard Boleslawski
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
Committeeman (uncredited)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Committeeman (uncredited) gives Davison Clark a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mr. Meeker (uncredited)
Red River (1948)
Performance score6.9
Red River asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Meeker (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Minister of Finance #2 (uncredited)
Duck Soup (1933)
Performance score6.9
Duck Soup asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Minister of Finance #2 (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Deputy Sheriff (uncredited)
Jezebel (1938)
Performance score6.6
Jezebel asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Deputy Sheriff (uncredited) 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 Committeeman (uncredited)
Start here. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is the clearest statement of what Davison Clark does — accessible, 130 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Davison 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.
Duck Soup (1933)
Keeps the comedy register of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington but asks for a colder reading of it.
Les Misérables (1935)
A deliberate change of key after Duck Soup — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Jezebel (1938)
Keeps the romance register of Les Misérables but asks for a colder reading of it.
Red River (1948)
A deliberate change of key after Jezebel — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Cecil B. DeMille
Director
5 films together
Notably Samson and Delilah
Josef von Sternberg
Director
2 films together
Notably The Scarlet Empress
Leo McCarey
Director
1 film together
Notably Duck Soup
Richard Boleslawski
Director
1 film together
Notably Les Misérables
Norman Z. McLeod
Director
1 film together
Notably Topper
William Wyler
Director
1 film together
Notably Jezebel
Frank Capra
Director
1 film together
Notably Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Fritz Lang
Director
1 film together
Notably The Return of Frank James
René Clair
Director
1 film together
Notably It Happened Tomorrow
Howard Hawks
Director
1 film together
Notably Red River
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Cecil B. DeMille
Director
5 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 5 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Samson and DelilahJosef von Sternberg
Director
2 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Scarlet EmpressFrank Capra
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mr. Smith Goes to WashingtonHoward Hawks
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Red RiverLeo McCarey
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Duck SoupWilliam Wyler
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
JezebelRichard Boleslawski
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Les MisérablesRené Clair
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
It Happened TomorrowNorman Z. McLeod
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TopperFritz Lang
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 Return of Frank JamesSix 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
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Committeeman (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Jezebel
as Deputy Sheriff (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Committeeman (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Committeeman (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Committeeman (uncredited)
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. Davison Clark 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.
Romance Legend
Awarded
9 catalogue titles in romance, 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
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Committeeman (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Committeeman (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Samson and Delilah
as Merchant Prince
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Topper
as Police Sergeant (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Red River
as Mr. Meeker (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
North West Mounted Police
as Surgeon Roberts
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Committeeman (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Return of Frank James
as Officer
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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