Trading Places
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 cross when they are unwittingly made the subjects of an elaborate bet to test how each man will perform when their life circumstances are swapped.
This article is about the 1983 comedy film. For other uses, see Trading Places (disambiguation).Trading Places
Malcolm Campbell
- June 8, 1983
116 minutes
United States
English
$15 million
$120.6 million
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 December 1982 to March 1983, 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 $120.6 million worldwide. It also received generally positive reviews, with critics praising both the central cast and the film's revival of the screwball comedy genre prevalent in the 1930s and 1940s while criticizing Trading Places for lacking the same moral message of the genre while 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 reassessed both positively and negatively. It has been praised as one of the greatest comedy films and Christmas films ever made, but retrospective assessments have criticized its use of racial jokes and language. In 2010, the film was referenced in Congressional testimony concerning the reform of the commodities trading market designed to prevent the insider trading demonstrated in Trading Places. In 1988, Bellamy and Ameche reprised their characters for Murphy's comedy film Coming to America.
Plot[edit]
Brothers Randolph and Mortimer Duke own a commodities brokerage firm, Duke & Duke Commodity Brokers, 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 on opposite sides of the social hierarchy and observing the results. 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. The Dukes decide to use them for their experiment.
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 vilified by his friends and Penelope. 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. 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 Winthorpe's butler, 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 (USDA) report on orange crop forecasts. Winthorpe and Valentine remember large payments made to Beeks by the Dukes. They realize the Dukes will obtain the report early to corner the market on frozen concentrated orange juice.
On New Year's Eve, the four board Beeks' 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 disguise Beeks with a gorilla suit and cage him with the real gorilla. The group delivers the forged report to the Dukes in Beeks' place. After sharing a kiss with Ophelia, Winthorpe travels to New York City with Valentine, carrying with them Coleman's and Ophelia's life savings to carry out their plan.
On the commodities trading floor, the Dukes commit their holdings to buying frozen concentrated orange juice futures contracts, legally committing themselves to buying the commodity at a later date. Other traders follow their lead, driving the price up; Valentine and Winthorpe 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 panic 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 $394 million 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.
As well as the main cast, Trading Places features Robert Curtis-Brown as Todd, Winthorpe's romantic rival for Penelope; Alfred Drake as the Securities Exchange manager;[6] and Jim Belushi as Harvey, a party-goer on New Year's Eve.[3] The film has numerous cameos, including singer Bo Diddley as a pawnbroker;[7] Curtis' sister Kelly as Penelope's friend Muffy; the Muppets puppeteers Frank Oz and Richard Hunt as, respectively, a police officer and Wilson, the Dukes' broker on the trading floor; and Aykroyd's former Saturday Night Live colleagues, Tom Davis and Al Franken, as train baggage handlers.[3]
Other minor roles include Ron Taylor as "Big Black Guy", American football player J. T. Turner as "Even Bigger Black Guy" who only says "Yeah!",[8] and Giancarlo Esposito as a cellmate.[6] Trading Places also features the final theatrically released performance of Avon Long who plays the Dukes' butler Ezra.[9] The gorilla is portrayed by mime Don McLeod.[10][11]
Production[edit]
Writing and development[edit]
In the early 1980s, writer Timothy Harris often played tennis against two wealthy, but frugal brothers who regularly engaged in a competitive rivalry and betting. Following one session, Harris returned home exasperated with the pair's conflict and concluded that they were "awful" people. The situation gave him the idea of two brothers betting over nature versus nurture in terms of human ability. Harris shared the idea with his writing partner Herschel Weingrod, who liked the concept. Harris also drew inspiration for the story from his own living situation; he lived in a rundown area near Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. He described the area in grim terms as crime-ridden, where everyone either had a gun pointed at them or had been raped.[2]
Harris and Weingrod researched the commodities market for the script.[2] They learned of financial market incidents, including Russian attempts to corner the wheat market and the Hunt brothers' efforts to corner the silver market on what became known as Silver Thursday. They thought trading orange juice and pork bellies would be funnier because the public would be unaware such mundane items were traded.[12] Harris consulted with people in the commodities business to understand how the film's finale on the trading floor would work. The pair determined that the commodities market would make for an interesting setting for a film, as long as it was not about the financial market itself. They needed something to draw the audience in. It was decided to set the story in Philadelphia because of its connections to the founding of the United States, the American dream and idealism and the pursuit of happiness. This was tempered by introducing Billy Ray Valentine as a black man begging on the street.[2] The pair knew that the method of Winthorpe's and Valentine's financial victory could be confusing, but hoped that audiences would be too invested in the characters' success to care about the details.[12]
The script was sold to Paramount Pictures under the title Black and White. Then-Paramount executive Jeffrey Katzenberg offered the project to director John Landis. Landis disliked the working title,[2] but favorably compared the script to older screwball comedies of the 1930s by directors like Frank Capra, Leo McCarey, and Preston Sturges, which often satirized social constructs and social classes, reflecting the cultural issues of their time. Landis wanted his film to reflect these concepts in the 1980s;[2][13][14] he said the main updates were the addition of swearing and nudity.[13] Landis admitted that it took him a while to understand how Trading Places' finale worked.[2]
Analysis[edit]
Ending explained[edit]
Several publications have attempted to explain exactly how Valentine and Winthorpe make a large sum of money on the commodities market while simultaneously bankrupting the Dukes.[84][85] The fake crop report created by Valentine and Winthorpe indicates to the Dukes that the orange crop will be poor, making the limited stock more valuable.[1][84][85] The Dukes attempt to buy up as many Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice (FCOJ) futures contracts as possible to corner the market—effectively owning a substantial enough number of contracts that they are able to control the price of FCOJ. The other traders realize what the Dukes are doing and join in buying futures.[84][85] This demand significantly inflates the price to $1.42 per pound—each future represents several pounds of FCOJ. Winthorpe and Valentine begin selling futures at this inflated price, believing it to be the peak price; the contracts will require them to supply FCOJ in April.[1][85] Anticipating that the crop report will cause the value of FCOJ to rise far above $1.42, the other brokers purchase heavily from the pair.[1][84][85]
Once the real crop report is published indicating that the orange crop will be normal and there will be no shortage of FCOJ, the value of the futures plummets as the traders desperately attempt to sell their futures and limit their financial losses.[84][85] Winthorpe and Valentine then buy back the futures from the traders—except for the Dukes' trader Wilson—at the lower price of 29 cents a pound.[84][85] The difference is their profit. Effectively, they have sold FCOJ which they do not have at a high price and bought it back at a lower price, earning them a profit and eliminating the need to fulfil any contracts.[85] Meanwhile, the Dukes have bought a significant number of FCOJ futures, around 100,000 contracts or 1.5 million pounds of FCOJ and have been unable to sell any of them. When trading closes, they must meet the margin call—essentially a deposit—for holding the futures contracts. In addition to their basic financial loss from buying futures at up to $1.42 that are now worth only 29 cents, the margin call for holding the futures gives them a total loss of $394 million,[e] which they do not have, requiring the sale of all of their assets.[86]