Trading Places (1983)

A snobbish investor and a wily street con artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.

Director:

John Landis

Writers:

Timothy Harris, Herschel Weingrod

Stars:

Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Ralph Bellamy

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 3 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Denholm Elliott	...	Coleman
Dan Aykroyd	...	Louis Winthorpe III
Maurice Woods	...	Duke & Duke Employee
Richard D. Fisher Jr.	...	Duke & Duke Employee
Jim Gallagher	...	Duke & Duke Employee
Anthony DiSabatino	...	Duke & Duke Employee
Bonnie Behrend	...	Duke & Duke Employee
Sunnie Merrill	...	Duke & Duke Employee
James Newell	...	Duke & Duke Employee (as Jim Newell)
Mary St. John	...	Duke & Duke Employee
Bonnie Tremena	...	Duke & Duke Employee
David Schwartz	...	Duke & Duke Employee
Ralph Bellamy	...	Randolph Duke
Don Ameche	...	Mortimer Duke
Tom Degidon	...	Duke Domestic

Storyline

Louis Winthorpe is a businessman who works for commodities brokerage firm of Duke and Duke owned by the brothers Mortimer and Randolph Duke. Now they bicker over the most trivial of matters and what they are bickering about is whether it's a person's environment or heredity that determines how well they will do in life. When Winthorpe bumps into Billy Ray Valentine, a street hustler and assumes he is trying to rob him, he has him arrested. Upon seeing how different the two men are, the brothers decide to make a wager as to what would happen if Winthorpe loses his job, his home and is shunned by everyone he knows and if Valentine was given Winthorpe's job. So they proceed to have Winthorpe arrested and to be placed in a compromising position in front of his girlfriend. So all he has to rely on is the hooker who was hired to ruin him.

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Plot Keywords:

role reversal | prostitute | stock market | santa claus costume | scam | 

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Taglines:

Take two complete strangers, make one of them rich the other poor... just watch the fun while they're... TRADING PLACES

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 June 1983 (USA)

Also Known As:

Black or White

Filming Locations:

The New York Chamber of Commerce Building - The Great Hall, 65 Liberty Street, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$15,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$7,348,200, 12 June 1983

Gross USA:

$90,404,800

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cinema Group Ventures,Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

116 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The character Blly Ray Valentine is based on a Twilight Zone character named Henry Valentine in season 1 episode 28 "A Nice Place to Visit". In this episode the small time crook, Henry is killed and given everything he desires but grows weary of always winning.

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Goofs

When we first see the Dukes going to work, in the car Mortimer is sitting on the left hand side of the car & Randolph on the right, but when they arrive at work Randolph gets out of the car first on the left.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Coleman: [holding a breakfast tray while Louis is still asleep] Your breakfast, sir.

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Crazy Credits

Ron Taylor is credited as 'Big Black Guy' and James D. Turner as ' Even Bigger Black Guy'

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Alternate Versions

When Aired on Spike TV the scene of the train speeding between Philadelphia and New York is cut as well as the scene where The Dukes and Bily Ray and Louie are walking outside of the World Trade Center. In this edited version as soon as Billy Ray and Louie go down the escalator at 30th street station in Philadelphia it cuts straight to The World Trade Center right where Louie says "Well this is it the last bastion of real pure capitalism on earth".

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Connections

Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Platoon/Lady and the Tramp/No Mercy (1986)

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Soundtracks

THE BIG WALTZ
by Lyn Murray

User Reviews

"I had the most absurd nightmare, I was poor, no one liked me. Phinellipe hated me, and it was all because of this terrible awful Negro"

Trading Places, one of the best comedies of all time! I don't even know where to start on how great this movie is. I've been watching this movie since I was a kid, know that sounds weird as this is an adult comedy, but I actually loved it growing up. As an adult it just gets better and better each time I watch it. It's one of the most intelligent comedies mixed with some great slap stick and take on our society. What a great idea, take an educated man, take away everything he knows and owns and see if he could survive. Then take a man with no education, given the right encouragement if he would rise to the occasion. Trading Places isn't just one of the best comedies to come out of the 80's, but one of the best comedies of all time.

Duke brothers Randolph and Mortimer own Duke & Duke, a successful commodities brokerage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Holding opposing views on the issue of nature versus nurture, they make a wager and agree to conduct an experiment switching the lives of two people at opposite sides of the social hierarchy and observing the results. They witness an encounter between their managing director, educated Louis Winthorpe III, and a poor street hustler Billy Ray Valentine; Valentine is arrested at Winthorpe's insistence because of a misunderstanding robbery attempt. The Dukes decide to use the two men for their experiment. Take away Winthorpe's fiancé, home, job, money, friends and respect, frame him on a drug charge, will he bounce back because of his education and manners? Give uneducated Billy Ray a great job, beautiful home, respect and encouragement, will he turn hardened criminal into an upstanding citizen? Trading places, what a great idea if the boys only knew of the Duke's scheme.

Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy were just way too awesome together and had amazing chemistry. Their comedic timing is always on key. A mix with Jamie Lee Curtis and Denholm Elliott added much more to the story and jokes with their reactions and presence. My favorite scene with Dan was definitely seeing him exit the prison with his fiancé and Jamie Lee Curtis has been paid to make it look like he's her lover/drug dealer and her all over him in front of his fiancé while he's just shocked as Jamie goes down on him and to add it all he gets a hard slap to the face! Ouch! But you'll have to pause the scene because you'll die of laughter. Eddie's best scene is also when he gets excited that he could go to his low life acquaintances and show off, he throws a party and they trash his house and he kicks them all out was so funny the way he did it. What a classic movie, one that I will watch again and again. I proudly show this movie to my friends when they need a good laugh. This movie is a treasure to comedies, it's well paced and one of the best movies of all time. The only change I would have made is that at the end when they are on their own private island they toast each other on a job well done and since ironically they ruined the Dukes with orange juice, it would have been more hilarious if that's what they were toasting with instead of champagne. But it's still a perfect movie, highly recommended.

10/10