Trading Places 1983

     Brothers Mortimer and Randolph Duke own the commodities brokerage firm of Duke and Duke.  They have become very wealthy through the years.  Louis Winthrope is a businessman working for the company.  Mortimer and Randolph sometimes get a little bored and they make a $1.00 bet with each other.  They have been bickering over the question of a person’s environment or heredity that determines how successful they will be in life?  They frame Louis, he loses his job, goes to jail, loses his home and his fiancé.  They give everything except his fiancé that belonged to Louis to Billy Ray Valentine.  Billy is a street hustler pretending to use a cart and not able to use his legs.  Everyone he knows including his fiancé shuns Louis.  He meets Ophelia, she’s hired to cause his fiancé to leave him but instead they become friends.  She’s the only one who will help him. 

     It’s real cruelty for the Duke brothers to place this mean bet for just $1.00!!!  I don’t know if the experiment gives an answer to the question of environment or heredity?  It does let Louis know who his friends really are.  It also shows Billy Ray what his friends are really like.  I was surprised about Jamie Lee Curtis in the role of Ophelia as a hooker!!  3* (This movie is OK) 

      

116 min, Comedy directed by John Landis with Jamie Lee Curtis, Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Ralph Bellamy, Denholm Elliott, Don Ameche, Avon Long, Tom Mardirosian, Charles Brown, Robert Curtis Brown.

Note:  Imdb 7.5 out of 10, 86% critic 85% audience, Roger Ebert 3 ½*, Amazon 4.7* with 1830 reviews, Metacritic 69 out of 100 with 10 critics 8.5 out of 10 with 77 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands; New York, Long Island; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Newark, New Jersey.  Originally Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor were to be in the roles of Louis and Billy Ray.  When Murphy took the role of Billy Ray, he asked that Wilder be replaced.  He didn’t want people to think he was trying to be another Richard Pryor.  A new ruling was enacted on Wall Street in 2010 and inspired by this film.  It’s called the Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act.  It’s used to bar anyone from using secret inside information to corner markets.  The premise of this film may have been inspired by an event on March 27, 1980 when the Hunt brothers of Texas tried to corner the silver market.  The Duke brothers wearing matching suits and ties but Randolph wears a bowtie and Mortimer wears a necktie.  Former Senator Al Franken still gets royalties for his appearance as a baggage handler.