He appeared in 84 films between 1921 and 1953. He appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps in 1935. In 1943, he played the stationmaster in the Ealing war film Undercover. He also appeared as Wemmick in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946), and as the Chairman of the Workhouse, in Lean's film Oliver Twist (1948). One of his last film appearances was as the murderer Major Jack Ross in John Huston's Beat the Devil (1953) with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre.