The Joker is one of the most popular super villains of all time, and arguably the most popular from the Batman world. Every fan has their own favorite actor: many love Jack Nicholson’s mafia performance in the Tim Burton movie. Some have fallen for Jared Leto’s flamboyant aesthetic. Others, in turn, praise Joaquin Phoenix’s character play. And a majority recognizes Heath Ledger’s performance as one of the best acting performances ever.
Cesar Romero, who played the Joker in both Batman and the 1960s TV show, is all too often overlooked. He was the first Joker actor to make a lasting impact on the character’s style: purple-green clothing, a face painted white, and green hair. Its humor and exaggerated nature would also characterize later depictions. With an Easter Egg it’s in “The dark knightmanaged to pay tribute to Romero’s Joker. It is a small detail that already plays a central role at the beginning of the film.
The Dark Knight opens with a shot of the man in a clown mask. When you first see the movie, you might think that the Joker’s face is on display. It’s not, even if it has something to do with Gotham’s most feared villains. It is one of the masks worn by the Joker’s henchmen during a bank robbery. The implementation takes up the first scenes of the film and shows us what kind of prankster we are dealing with!
Heath Ledger’s character tricks the other criminals into turning them against each other and committing suicide. At the end of this insidious punchline, he presents himself to the public for the first time – he too hid under one of the masks. We get a sense of the character’s brutally intelligent comedy early on. We also get to know the atmosphere of the Gotham City underworld, where no one can be trusted.
Fans of the 1960s Batman series will be familiar with the henchman mask. It is a reference to the mask Romero wore during his first appearance as the Joker. This is the episode “The Joker Is Wild” where everyone’s favorite villain appears on an opera stage dressed as Pagliacci. Of course, it’s an elaborate trap he sets for Batman and Robin. The hidden reference in the Nolan movie doesn’t appear by chance at the beginning of the movie: Both at For both Romero and Ledger, the mask marks the first appearance in their own universes. A wonderful tribute, we think!