Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#69500
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
George Davis represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and George is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
George Davis appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without George. Sherlock Jr. 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, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, comedy, music. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Howard Hawks, Vincente Minnelli, Nicholas Ray and others, George Davis 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.
Sherlock Jr. (1924) as Conspirator (uncredited) · The Circus (1928) as A Magician · In a Lonely Place (1950) as Waiter (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #69500 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1924–1953
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Sherlock Jr.
Average Nutevio score
7.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Sherlock Jr.
Most frequent director
Howard Hawks
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Howard Hawks
Most common genre
Romance
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.8
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
1920s
7.5 average MV
The 1920s are where the work and the material meet. The Circus, Sherlock Jr. — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1920s
7.5
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1920s
8.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1920s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Circus, Sherlock Jr..
Most productive era
1940s
4 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 | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.51 film | 6.61 film | 6.73 films | 7.21 film |
| Action | 7.61 film | — | — | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.81 film | 7.21 film |
| Comedy | 7.52 films | 7.11 film | 6.81 film | 6.92 films |
| Crime | — | — | 6.81 film | — |
| Romance | 7.51 film | 6.82 films | 6.73 films | 7.03 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
1924Sherlock Jr.
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Conspirator (uncredited). 7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
1928The Circus
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 Pierre, Cab Driver (uncredited).
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.
11 of 11 films
as A Magician
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
as Conspirator (uncredited)
Directed by Buster Keaton
as Waiter (uncredited)
Directed by Nicholas Ray
as Pierre, Cab Driver (uncredited)
Directed by Howard Hawks
as Porter at Railroad Station (uncredited)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
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
A Magician
The Circus (1928)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. A Magician gives George Davis a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Conspirator (uncredited)
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
Performance score7.4
Sherlock Jr. asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Conspirator (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Waiter (uncredited)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Performance score7.1
In a Lonely Place asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Waiter (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Pierre, Cab Driver (uncredited)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Performance score7.0
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pierre, Cab Driver (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 A Magician
Start here. The Circus is the clearest statement of what George Davis does — accessible, 72 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet George 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.
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
Keeps the comedy register of The Circus but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ninotchka (1939)
Keeps the comedy register of Sherlock Jr. but asks for a colder reading of it.
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Keeps the romance register of Ninotchka but asks for a colder reading of it.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Keeps the romance register of In a Lonely Place but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Buster Keaton
Director
1 film together
Notably Sherlock Jr.
Charlie Chaplin
Director
1 film together
Notably The Circus
Josef von Sternberg
Director
1 film together
Notably The Scarlet Empress
Ernst Lubitsch
Director
1 film together
Notably Ninotchka
Alexander Korda
Director
1 film together
Notably That Hamilton Woman
H. C. Potter
Director
1 film together
Notably Hellzapoppin'
Mervyn LeRoy
Director
1 film together
Notably Madame Curie
Edmund Goulding
Director
1 film together
Notably Nightmare Alley
Nicholas Ray
Director
1 film together
Notably In a Lonely Place
Vincente Minnelli
Director
1 film together
Notably An American in Paris
Howard Hawks
Director
1 film together
Notably Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Buster Keaton
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sherlock Jr.Charlie Chaplin
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The CircusNicholas Ray
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In a Lonely PlaceHoward Hawks
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gentlemen Prefer BlondesErnst Lubitsch
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NinotchkaVincente Minnelli
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
An American in ParisEdmund Goulding
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nightmare AlleyH. C. Potter
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hellzapoppin'Mervyn LeRoy
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Madame CurieAlexander Korda
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
That Hamilton WomanJosef von Sternberg
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Scarlet EmpressSix 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
Ninotchka
as Porter at Railroad Station (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
The Circus
as A Magician
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Sherlock Jr.
as Conspirator (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
as Pierre, Cab Driver (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Circus
as A Magician
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. George Davis 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.
Career Achievement
Awarded
29 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
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
Sherlock Jr.
as Conspirator (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Sherlock Jr.
as Conspirator (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Madame Curie
as Cart Driver (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
In a Lonely Place
as Waiter (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Sherlock Jr.
as Conspirator (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Sherlock Jr.
as Conspirator (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Circus
as A Magician
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
An American in Paris
as François (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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