Cliff Robertson Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Cliff Robertson (September 9, 1923 – September 10, 2011) played Higgins, the CIA's New York deputy director, in Three Days of the Condor (1975). The performance is the film's most disquieting because Higgins is competent, polite, and persuasive.
Higgins is the role that makes the film durable
The final scene between Turner and Higgins is the most quoted in the film. Robertson plays Higgins not as a villain but as a senior bureaucrat doing his job. He does not raise his voice. He does not try to bargain. He explains. The performance turns the conspiracy into an institutional position rather than a personal crime.
"Higgins isn't lying. That's what's so terrifying about him. He believes the agency exists to do exactly what it has done." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (1975)
"Cliff Robertson plays the kind of senior official who is genuinely surprised when his analyst doesn't agree with him. Surprise is more frightening than anger." — Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies (1982) (book, not available online)
The closing question — "How do you know they'll print it?" — is one of the most resonant final lines in 1970s American cinema. Robertson delivers it as something between a warning and a sincere inquiry. There is no triumph in it.
Robertson's career took a hard turn three years after Condor
Robertson had won the Best Actor Oscar in 1968 for Charly, playing the cognitively disabled subject of an experimental procedure. By 1975 he was a respected character lead. In 1977 he reported a forged check signed in his name by Columbia Pictures executive David Begelman, triggering the "Begelmangate" scandal. Robertson was effectively blacklisted in Hollywood for several years afterward — the studios closed ranks against the whistleblower rather than the embezzler. The parallel to Joe Turner's predicament — an honest man punished by his institution for telling the truth — was widely noted at the time.
"I just told the truth. The system did what the system does. It tried to make me the problem." — Cliff Robertson, Vanity Fair (2008)
He returned slowly through the 1980s and worked steadily through the 2000s, with a memorable late-career role as Uncle Ben in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007). (wikipedia, imdb)
Selected filmography
| Year | Film | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1955 | Picnic | Feature debut |
| 1963 | PT 109 | Played John F. Kennedy at Kennedy's request |
| 1968 | Charly | Best Actor Oscar |
| 1973 | Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies | Story credit |
| 1975 | Three Days of the Condor | Higgins |
| 1976 | Obsession | De Palma |
| 1980 | The Pilot | Wrote, directed, starred |
| 1985 | Dallas | TV |
| 2002 | Spider-Man | Uncle Ben |
| 2004 | Spider-Man 2 | Uncle Ben |
| 2007 | Spider-Man 3 | Uncle Ben |