Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#61219
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Robert Dalban represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 33 years in, and Robert is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Robert Dalban appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Robert. Diabolique 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, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Claude Pinoteau, Robert Lamoureux, Yves Robert and others, Robert Dalban 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.
Diabolique (1955) as Garage Owner · Crooks in Clover (1963) as Jean, le majordome · Jenny Lamour (1947) as Paulo
Career snapshot
Ranked #61219 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1947–1980
Career length
33 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Diabolique
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Diabolique
Most frequent director
André Hunebelle
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With André Hunebelle
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
6.8
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
1950s
7.2 average MV
The 1950s are where the work and the material meet. Marie-Octobre, Diabolique — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1950s
7.2
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1950s
7.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1940s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Jenny Lamour.
Most productive era
1960s
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 | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.01 film | 6.81 film | — | — | 6.61 film |
| Thriller | 7.01 film | 7.51 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.84 films | 6.93 films | 6.61 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.84 films | — | — |
| Romance | — | — | — | — | 6.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1947Jenny Lamour
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Paulo.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1955Diabolique
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
1980The Party
The current state of the argument, as Serge, server of La Coupole.
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 Garage Owner
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
as Jean, le majordome
Directed by Georges Lautner
as Léon Blanchet
Directed by Julien Duvivier
as Directeur du journal
Directed by André Hunebelle
as Paulo
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Garage Owner
Diabolique (1955)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Garage Owner gives Robert Dalban a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jean, le majordome
Crooks in Clover (1963)
Performance score7.2
Crooks in Clover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jean, le majordome is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Léon Blanchet
Marie-Octobre (1959)
Performance score7.0
Marie-Octobre asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Léon Blanchet is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Directeur du journal
Fantomas (1964)
Performance score6.9
Fantomas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Directeur du journal 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 Garage Owner
Start here. Diabolique is the clearest statement of what Robert Dalban does — accessible, 118 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Robert 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.
Jenny Lamour (1947)
Same director as Diabolique, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Marie-Octobre (1959)
Keeps the mystery register of Jenny Lamour but asks for a colder reading of it.
Crooks in Clover (1963)
A deliberate change of key after Marie-Octobre — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Fantomas (1964)
Keeps the comedy register of Crooks in Clover but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
André Hunebelle
Director
3 films together
Notably Fantomas
Henri-Georges Clouzot
Director
2 films together
Notably Diabolique
Robert Lamoureux
Director
2 films together
Notably The Seventh Company Has Been Found
Julien Duvivier
Director
1 film together
Notably Marie-Octobre
Georges Lautner
Director
1 film together
Notably Crooks in Clover
Yves Robert
Director
1 film together
Notably The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe
Claude Pinoteau
Director
1 film together
Notably The Party
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
André Hunebelle
Director
3 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
FantomasHenri-Georges Clouzot
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
DiaboliqueRobert Lamoureux
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Seventh Company Has Been FoundGeorges Lautner
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crooks in CloverYves Robert
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Tall Blond Man with One Black ShoeJulien Duvivier
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Marie-OctobreClaude Pinoteau
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 PartySix 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
Diabolique
as Garage Owner
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 Party
as Serge, server of La Coupole
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Diabolique
as Garage Owner
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Party
as Serge, server of La Coupole
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Diabolique
as Garage Owner
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. Robert Dalban 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
33 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Diabolique
as Garage Owner
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Diabolique
as Garage Owner
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Party
as Serge, server of La Coupole
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Diabolique
as Garage Owner
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Diabolique
as Garage Owner
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Fantomas
as Directeur du journal
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Party
as Serge, server of La Coupole
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Party
as Serge, server of La Coupole
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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