Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#21139
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Pat Flaherty 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.
Pat Flaherty appears in 27 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Pat. Modern Times is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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 crime, thriller, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with William Wyler, Henry Koster, John Huston and others, Pat Flaherty 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.
Modern Times (1936) as Jail Guard (uncredited) · The Great Dictator (1940) as Friendly Storm Trooper (uncredited) · The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) as Customer in Bar Who Warns Curtin and Dobbs about Pat McCormick (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #21139 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
27
1934–1955
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
Modern Times
Average Nutevio score
7.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
The Great Dictator
Most frequent director
Howard Hawks
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Howard Hawks
Most common genre
Drama
15 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
6.7
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
1940s
7.1 average MV
The 1940s are where the work and the material meet. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, Angel and the Badman — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1940s
7.1
Across 14 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1950s
7.4
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. Only Angels Have Wings, Dodge City, You Can't Take It with You.
Most productive era
1940s
14 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 | 7.06 films | 7.18 films | 7.11 film |
| Action | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.92 films | 6.71 film |
| Comedy | 7.44 films | 7.34 films | 7.31 film |
| Crime | 6.82 films | 7.02 films | 6.92 films |
| Romance | 7.15 films | 6.96 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1934The Thin Man
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Fighter at Party (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1936Modern Times
8.2 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 Dutch.
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.
27 of 27 films
as Jail Guard (uncredited)
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
as Friendly Storm Trooper (uncredited)
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
as Customer in Bar Who Warns Curtin and Dobbs about Pat McCormick (uncredited)
Directed by John Huston
as Policeman (uncredited)
Directed by Henry Koster
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
Jail Guard (uncredited)
Modern Times (1936)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jail Guard (uncredited) gives Pat Flaherty a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Friendly Storm Trooper (uncredited)
The Great Dictator (1940)
Performance score7.8
The Great Dictator asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Friendly Storm Trooper (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Customer in Bar Who Warns Curtin and Dobbs about Pat McCormick (uncredited)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Performance score7.4
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Customer in Bar Who Warns Curtin and Dobbs about Pat McCormick (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Deputy (uncredited)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Performance score7.3
The Grapes of Wrath asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Deputy (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 Jail Guard (uncredited)
Start here. Modern Times is the clearest statement of what Pat Flaherty does — accessible, 87 minutes, and rated 8.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Pat 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.
The Great Dictator (1940)
Same director as Modern Times, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
A deliberate change of key after The Great Dictator — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Keeps the drama register of The Grapes of Wrath but asks for a colder reading of it.
Harvey (1950)
A deliberate change of key after The Treasure of the Sierra Madre — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Howard Hawks
Director
4 films together
Notably His Girl Friday
John Huston
Director
3 films together
Notably The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
William A. Wellman
Director
2 films together
Notably A Star Is Born
Charlie Chaplin
Director
2 films together
Notably Modern Times
Frank Capra
Director
2 films together
Notably You Can't Take It with You
Michael Curtiz
Director
2 films together
Notably Yankee Doodle Dandy
William Wyler
Director
2 films together
Notably The Best Years of Our Lives
W.S. Van Dyke
Director
1 film together
Notably The Thin Man
Frank Lloyd
Director
1 film together
Notably Mutiny on the Bounty
William Keighley
Director
1 film together
Notably 'G' Men
Gregory La Cava
Director
1 film together
Notably My Man Godfrey
John Ford
Director
1 film together
Notably The Grapes of Wrath
Jack Conway
Director
1 film together
Notably Boom Town
Sam Wood
Director
1 film together
Notably The Pride of the Yankees
Alfred Hitchcock
Director
1 film together
Notably Saboteur
James Edward Grant
Director
1 film together
Notably Angel and the Badman
Henry Koster
Director
1 film together
Notably Harvey
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Howard Hawks
Director
4 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
His Girl FridayJohn Huston
Director
3 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Treasure of the Sierra MadreCharlie Chaplin
Director
2 films together · 8.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Modern TimesWilliam Wyler
Director
2 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Best Years of Our LivesFrank Capra
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
You Can't Take It with YouMichael Curtiz
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Yankee Doodle DandyWilliam A. Wellman
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
A Star Is BornJohn Ford
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 Grapes of WrathHenry Koster
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HarveyGregory La Cava
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Man GodfreyW.S. Van Dyke
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Thin ManFrank Lloyd
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mutiny on the BountySam Wood
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Pride of the YankeesAlfred Hitchcock
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SaboteurJack Conway
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Boom TownWilliam Keighley
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
'G' MenJames Edward Grant
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Angel and the BadmanSix 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 Great Dictator
as Friendly Storm Trooper (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
Modern Times
as Jail Guard (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
Modern Times
as Jail Guard (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Pride of the Yankees
as Yankee Ballplayer (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Modern Times
as Jail Guard (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. Pat Flaherty 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
21 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Drama Legend
Awarded
15 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
Modern Times
as Jail Guard (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Key Largo
as The Traveler (first Ziggy henchman) (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Best Years of Our Lives
as Salvage Foreman (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Thin Man
as Fighter at Party (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Customer in Bar Who Warns Curtin and Dobbs about Pat McCormick (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Customer in Bar Who Warns Curtin and Dobbs about Pat McCormick (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Modern Times
as Jail Guard (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Call of the Wild
as Dandy on Street (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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