David Davies
Six foot four and Welsh, David Davies spent two decades and more being exactly what British film needed him to be: the big man in the doorway. He worked mainly in British films and television, cast as heavies, policemen and men with rank, and he was in steady demand for anything set in Wales, from The Three Weird Sisters and The Last Days of Dolwyn in the late 1940s through to Only Two Can Play in 1962.
His most seen part is Mr. Arrow, the first mate in Disney's 1950 Treasure Island, the ship's authority and its enforcer until Long John Silver gets to work on him. That is the Davies function in miniature: solid enough that removing him means something.
The rest of the credits here map an industry rather than a career arc. He is a city policeman in The Lavender Hill Mob, a desk sergeant in Tiger Bay, a Welsh police constable in The Long Arm, a boat captain in The Heroes of Telemark, an uncredited quaestor in Ben-Hur, a burly man in King of Kings. Then, late on, Utah Watkins in Under Milk Wood, which is the one credit that lets a Welsh actor be Welsh in a Welsh text instead of in a uniform.
Movies (9)
TV (1)
Where to start with David Davies
Treasure Island is where to see him properly. Mr. Arrow is a real part, the mate whose competence sets the stakes for everything Long John Silver does next, and it is the only credit here that gives Davies a full shape to play.
After that you are collecting appearances, which has its own pleasure. The Lavender Hill Mob is the best film on the list by a distance, an Ealing comedy where he is a policeman for roughly as long as it takes to say so. Tiger Bay is the closest to home, a Cardiff thriller with a genuine sense of place. Under Milk Wood is the one to save for last: Dylan Thomas, a cast of Welsh voices, and Davies out of uniform.
For scale, Ben-Hur and King of Kings have him uncredited or nearly so inside enormous productions, and The Masque of the Red Death is the odd one out, a Corman gothic where he is billed as the lead villager.