Trading Places is a 1983 American comedy film directed by John Landis and written by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod. Starring Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, and Jamie Lee Curtis, the film tells the story of an upper-class commodities broker (Aykroyd) and a poor street hustler (Murphy) whose lives intersect over the Christmas and New Year holidays when they are unwittingly made the subjects of an elaborate bet to test how each man will perform when their life circumstances are swapped.
Harris conceived the outline for Trading Places in the early 1980s after meeting two wealthy brothers who were engaged in an ongoing rivalry with each other. He and his writing partner Weingrod developed the idea as a project to star Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. When they were unable to participate, Landis cast Aykroyd—with whom he had worked previously—and a young but increasingly popular Murphy in his second feature-film role. Landis also cast Curtis against the intent of the studio, Paramount Pictures; she was famous mainly for her roles in horror films, which were looked down upon at the time. Principal photography took place from December1982 to March1983, entirely on location in Philadelphia and New York City. Elmer Bernstein scored the film, using Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera buffa The Marriage of Figaro as an underlying theme.
Trading Places was considered a box-office success on its release, earning over $90.4 million to become the fourth-highest-grossing film of 1983 in the United States and Canada, and $120.6million worldwide. It received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the central cast and the film's revival of the 1930s and 1940s screwball comedy genre, though they criticized Trading Places for lacking the genre's moral message and instead promoting the accumulation of wealth. It received multiple award nominations including an Academy Award for Bernstein's score and won two BAFTA awards for Elliott and Curtis. The film also launched or revitalized the careers of its main cast, who each appeared in several other films throughout the 1980s. In particular, Murphy became one of the highest-paid and most sought after comedians in Hollywood.
In the years since its release, the film has been praised as one of the greatest comedy films and Christmas films ever made, though it has also drawn criticism for its use of racial jokes and language. In 1988, Bellamy and Ameche reprised their characters for Murphy's comedy film Coming to America. In 2010, the film was referenced in U.S. Congressional testimony concerning the reform of the commodities trading market to prevent the insider trading demonstrated in Trading Places.
Plot
Brothers Randolph and Mortimer Duke own a commodities brokerage firm, Duke & Duke Commodity Brokers, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They witness an encounter between their managing director—the well-mannered and educated Louis Winthorpe III, engaged to the Dukes' grandniece Penelope Witherspoon—and poor black street hustler Billy Ray Valentine. Valentine is arrested at Winthorpe's insistence after the latter assumes he is being robbed. Holding opposing views on the issue of nature versus nurture, the Dukes make a wager and agree to conduct an experiment to observe the results of switching the lives of Valentine and Winthorpe, two people in contrasting social strata.
Winthorpe is framed as a thief, drug dealer, and philanderer by Clarence Beeks, a man on the Dukes' payroll. He is fired from Duke & Duke, his bank accounts are frozen, he is denied entry to his Duke-owned home, and is ostracized by Penelope and his friends. Winthorpe is befriended by Ophelia, a prostitute who helps him in exchange for a financial reward once he is exonerated to secure her own retirement. The Dukes post bail for Valentine, install him in Winthorpe's former job, and grant him use of Winthorpe's home, including the service of his butler Coleman. Valentine becomes well versed in the business, using his street smarts to achieve success, and begins to act in a well-mannered way.
During the firm's Christmas party, Winthorpe plants drugs in Valentine's desk, attempting to frame him, and brandishes a gun to escape. Later, the Dukes discuss their experiment and settle their wager for $1. They plot to return Valentine to the streets, but have no intention of taking back Winthorpe. Valentine overhears the conversation and seeks out Winthorpe, who has attempted suicide by overdosing. Valentine, Ophelia and Coleman nurse him back to health and inform him of the experiment. Watching a television news broadcast, they learn that Beeks is transporting a secret United States Department of Agriculture report on orange crop forecasts. Remembering large payments made to Beeks by the Dukes, Winthorpe and Valentine decide to foil the brothers' plan to obtain the report early and use it to corner the market on frozen concentrated orange juice.
On New Year's Eve, the four board Beeks's train in disguise, intending to switch the original report with a forgery that predicts low orange crop yields. Beeks uncovers their scheme and attempts to kill them, but is knocked unconscious by a gorilla being transported on the train. The four dress him in a gorilla suit and cage him with the real gorilla. They deliver the forged report to the Dukes in Beeks's place and collect the payment intended for him. After sharing a kiss with Ophelia, Winthorpe travels to New York City with Valentine, pooling the money with the life savings of Ophelia and Coleman to carry out their plan.
On the commodities trading floor, the Dukes invest heavily in buying frozen concentrated orange juice futures contracts, legally committing themselves to purchase the commodity at a later date. Other traders follow their lead, driving the price up; Valentine and Winthorpe naked-short-sell juice futures contracts at the inflated price. Following the broadcast of the actual crop report and its prediction of a normal harvest, the price of juice futures plummets. As the traders frantically sell their futures, Valentine and Winthorpe buy at the lower price from everyone except the Dukes, fulfilling the contracts they had short-sold earlier and turning an immense profit.
After the closing bell, Valentine and Winthorpe explain to the Dukes that they made a wager on whether they could get rich and make the Dukes poor at the same time, and Winthorpe pays Valentine his winnings of $1. When the Dukes prove unable to pay the $394million required to satisfy their margin call, the exchange manager orders their seats sold and their corporate and personal assets confiscated, effectively bankrupting them. Randolph collapses holding his chest and Mortimer shouts at the others, demanding the floor be reopened in a futile plea to recoup their losses.
The now-wealthy Valentine, Winthorpe, Ophelia, and Coleman vacation on a luxurious tropical beach, while Beeks and the gorilla are loaded onto a ship bound for Africa.
Cast
- Dan Aykroyd as Louis Winthorpe III: a wealthy commodities director at Duke & Duke.