Carl Grissom is the overarching antagonist in the 1989 film Batman, the first installment of the Burton/Schumacher Batman film quadrilogy.
He was Gotham City's most powerful crime lord until he was betrayed and killed by his second-in-command Jack Napier, who survived an assassination attempt arranged by his boss and is now surfacing as the infamous supervillain Joker.
He was portrayed by the late Jack Palance.
Background[]
Personality[]
Carl Grissom enjoyed the finer things in life such as Alicia and his penthouse. Grissom had no remorse for his murderous actions, but was willing to manipulate others for his own ends. For instance, when Grissom learned that Napier and Alicia were having an affair, Grissom sent Napier to Axis Chemicals to get assassinated by the G.C.P.D. and Napier only went to Axis Chemicals to retrieve documents from Grissom that would've incriminated him if District Attorney Harvey Dent were to seize them. Grissom at first had guilt in setting Napier up, but decided otherwise since he knew he had to draw the line while reshuffling the entire organization. When Napier resurfaced to get revenge on Grissom, Grissom tried to manipulate Napier again by feigning relief and tried to bargain for his life only for the Joker to play wise to Grissom's motives.
Despite Grissom being a ruthless gangster, he truly did love Alicia and would never have tortured her to insanity similar to what Napier did when Napier became the Joker. Prior to his transformation as the Joker, Napier was rude to Alicia while Grissom was always polite to her. Grissom was only motivated to set Napier up because of his affair with Alicia, and was unaware that Napier was already planning to kill him to take control of the organization.
Physical Appearance[]
Role in the film[]
Carl Grissom was the most powerful crime lord in all of Gotham City. He had a mistress named Alicia Hunt who was secretly having an affair with Carl's "number one guy" Jack Napier. Carl had several members of the Gotham City Police Department on his payroll, including a corrupt lieutenant named Max Eckhardt. Lt. Eckhardt, who never liked Jack Napier, and wanted to see him brought down, told Grissom about the affair that Jack was having with Alicia. Without revealing that he knew the truth, Carl assigned Jack to a special project. He wanted Jack to go to their front company Axis Chemicals and remove all incriminating files before the the police had the opportunity to raid the facility. What Jack did not know was that Grissom had already cleaned out the plant, and had ordered Lt. Eckhardt to kill him.
The set up did not go as neatly as Grissom would have liked. Commissioner James Gordon caught wind of the incident and interceded before Eckhardt could take Napier out. Compounding the issue was the appearance of the nocturnal vigilante, the Batman. Batman struggled with Napier, but ultimately Jack fell into a vat of toxic chemicals. Napier survived the accident, but was horribly scarred and hopelessly insane.
After a futile attempt at reconstructive surgery, Jack returned to Carl Grissom’s penthouse for revenge. He could not believe that Carl would have him rubbed out over a woman. Carl tried pleading with the man, holding up his hands saying, “Jack, listen. Maybe we cut a deal”. As Jack stepped into the light, he removed his fedora and said, “Jack? Jack is dead, my friend. You can call me... Joker. And as you can see — I’m a lot happier.” At which point, Jack produced a revolver and shot Grissom several times in the chest, killing him.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In early drafts of the film's script, Rupert Thorne was meant to fill Carl Grissom's role before Grissom was created.
- Coincidentally, Jack Palance, the actor who played Grissom in Batman, inspired the look of the face of Darkseid, a Superman rogue and another DC Comics villain (yet one actually created in the comics).
- Along with Ross Webster from Superman III and Max Shreck from Batman Returns, Carl Grissom is one of the few characters created in a DC Comics live-action movie who has not been featured in actual comic media since then. Interestingly, all three characters were created to replace in their role an actual comic character.
