Martin Balsam The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Martin Balsam (1919–1996) plays Mr. Green (Harold Longman) in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), a fired subway motorman recruited for his technical knowledge of the system. Green is the weak link among the four hijackers — visibly nervous, suffering through a head cold he cannot shake, and uncomfortable with the violence around him. The cold is the film's sharpest plot device: a small physical detail that pays off in the final scene when a sneeze gives him away.

Balsam built a fifty-year career on making ordinary men unforgettable

Born November 4, 1919 in the Bronx, Balsam was a New York actor to his bones — an early member of the Actors Studio who came up through the New York stage before breaking into film with an uncredited role in On the Waterfront (1954). He played Juror #1 in 12 Angry Men (1957), was murdered on the staircase as detective Arbogast in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Thousand Clowns (1965). Broadway columnist Earl Wilson called him "The Bronx Barrymore." (wikipedia, deseret news)

Balsam understood what he was and never pretended otherwise:

"I think the average guy has always identified with me." — Martin Balsam, Deseret News (1996)

Stardom was never the point. In a 1967 interview, he put it plainly:

"I'll tell you, I still don't feel whatever change you're supposed to feel when your name goes up above the title. I think that's because this star thing has never been the first consideration with me. Never. The work has always come first." — Martin Balsam, The Last Drive In (1967 interview)

Green works because Balsam plays him as the most human hijacker

By 1974, Balsam had spent two decades specializing in men who do not call attention to themselves. Mr. Green is the logical endpoint of that career — a criminal whose defining trait is that he does not belong among criminals.

"Over the course of his long career, Balsam specialized in playing ordinary guys, and with performances that, for the most part, didn't call attention to themselves." — Sean Gallagher, The Joy and Agony of Movies (2013)

That ordinariness is what makes the ending land. Green is the hijacker the audience half-wants to escape — the one with a grievance, the one who never pulls a trigger. Dan McCoy, writing at The Dissolve, identified why the film's final sequence generates more suspense than a conventional chase:

"One of the reasons this last sequence works so well is that Martin Balsam is the most sympathetic of the 'bad guys.' He's the one who doesn't shoot anybody, he's suffering through a bad cold, and — depending on whether you believe his story — he was dicked over by the MTA, so he has a legitimate gripe against them." — Dan McCoy, Cinephilia & Beyond (via The Dissolve)

The film sets up Green's cold as background noise — sneezes over the radio that Garber reflexively answers with "Gesundheit." In the final scene, Garber visits Longman's apartment during a door-to-door canvass of fired motormen. Longman talks his way through the interview. Garber turns to leave. Longman sneezes. Garber says "Gesundheit," pauses, and turns back with an expression that closes the film. No gunfight, no chase — just a sneeze and a look.

"Who now would have the guts to end a tense cop thriller not with a gun battle but with a sneeze?" — Mythical Monkey, She Blogged by Night (2016) (comment)

"It's to the credit of Balsam's performance that he embraces how ordinary Mr. Green is." — Sean Gallagher, The Joy and Agony of Movies (2013)

Stacia at She Blogged by Night put the career assessment simply:

"Martin Balsam proves again that he was one of the best American actors we have ever seen." — Stacia, She Blogged by Night (2016)

Balsam died of a stroke on February 13, 1996 at a hotel in Rome, the city he had adopted as a second home after decades of work in Italian cinema. He was 76.