Main Menu
Film Review
Down
Reviews
Film of the
    Month
Film Books
Great Quotes
 
DVD facts
    Video facts
GGG
*
BUY THE FILM
DVD Zone 2
WATCH THE FILM
DVD Zone 2
No SoundTrack
.
  | Home   | Index   | Info   | This Week   | Poker   | News   | Email
 
Trading Places (1983)
 
Duke brothers Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) and Mortimer (Don Ameche) own Duke & Duke, a successful commodities brokerage in Philadelphia. Holding opposing views on nature versus nurture issue, 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.

Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) is their top trader and the poor street hustler named Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) are set to swap lives by the Dukes. Winthorpe is publicly framed as a thief and drugs are planted on him when he's arrested. He is fired from his job, his bank accounts are frozen and he is denied entry to the Duke owned town-house where he resides. Valentine quickly becomes well versed in the business and does very well.

During the firm's annual Christmas party, Winthorpe is caught planting drugs in Valentine's desk as he mistakently suspects that it was Valentine who framed him. After Winthorpe flees, Valentine hides in a mens room stall to smoke a joint that he took from the drugs that he was tossing into the garbage can. The Dukes enter the washroom and, unaware of his presence, discuss in detail the outcome of their experiment and settle their wager for $1. Valentine overhears this exchange and seeks out Winthorpe.
Trading Places the Movie
 
Winthorpe attempts suicide by overdosing on pills. Valentine, Ophelia and Winthorpe's former butler Coleman (Denholm Elliott) nurse him back to health and inform him of the Dukes' experiment. On television, they learn of a businessman named Clarence Beeks (Paul Gleason) transporting a secret report on orange crop forecasts. Winthorpe and Valentine recall large payments made to Beeks by Duke & Duke and they realize that the Dukes are planning to obtain this report to corner the market on orange juice. The group agrees to disrupt their plan as revenge.

What happens next should be left to the viewer to see but it makes for the best trading floor scene in any film as well as being beautifully comic.
 
The gambling aspect of this film is of no importance but it is scenic and portrays how things were done at this time in history. Good atmospheric recall of traders in the early 1980s.

Its a really good film because of great performances by a great cast and sweet finale. Comic Fun 9/10
 
Marks : 9/10
Director John Landis Denholm Elliott Coleman
Writing Timothy Harris et al Dan Aykroyd Louis Winthorpe III
Cinematography Robert Paynter Eddie Murphy Billy Ray Valentine
Producer George Folsey Jr. et al Jamie Lee Curtis Ophelia
Editing Malcolm Campbell James Belushi Harvey
 
Page Top
Film Review
Homepage

 
Email the Editor