Trading Places (film)
Cast
Dan Aykroyd as Louis Winthorpe
III
Eddie Murphy as Billy Ray Valentine
Ralph Bellamy as Randolph Duke
Don Ameche as Mortimer Duke
Denholm Elliott as Coleman
Jamie Lee Curtis
as Ophelia
Kristin Holby as Penelope Witherspoon
Paul Gleason as Clarence
Beeks
Alfred Drake as President of Exchange
Kelly Curtis as Muffy
James
Belushi as Harvey
Al Franken as Baggage handler #1
Tom Davis as Baggage
handler #2
Awards
Curtis and Elliott received BAFTA awards
for their roles.
The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Score.
Trading Places is an Academy Award-nominated 1983 comedy film starring Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis. It was directed by John Landis and written by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod. It was produced by Aaron Russo.
Plot
The plot is similar to the Three Stooges 1935 short
film Hoi Polloi. The movie's premise features two immensely wealthy and patrician
brothers, Mortimer and Randolph Duke (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy), who find
themselves on opposite sides of the nature versus nurture argument. The brothers
decide that the best way to resolve the argument is to ruin a successful man's
life, dramatically improve the fortunes of a street hustler, and see how they
respond. Mortimer believes that regardless of their shifting fortunes, the well-bred
subject will rise to the challenge and the riff-raff will fail no matter what
opportunities are presented to him. Randolph insists the well-bred subject will
unravel in society while the hustler will take full advantage of his new situation
and become a changed man. Both satisfied with the plan, the Duke brothers shake
hands to seal a wager for their "usual amount".
Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) is a respected senior employee of the Dukes who manages their Philadelphia commodities brokerage firm, Duke & Duke. His bona fides are impeccable, having attended Exeter and Harvard. Louis has reached the ideal level of detached self-satisfaction, complete with the superficial fiancée, Penelope. However, the Dukes arrange to shatter Louis' reputation by having one of their operatives, Clarence Beeks (Paul Gleason), "expose" him as a petty thief. As Louis is processed in jail, a scene featuring a cameo by Frank Oz, Louis finds that another item has been planted in his clothing — a cellophane bag containing angel dust. Louis does not fare well in jail — by the time Penelope arrives to post bail, he is disheveled and bruised. When he finally appears to convince Penelope he has been falsely accused, a prostitute, Ophelia, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, lustily kisses Louis and begs him for a dime bag, promising to "do all the things he likes".
Penelope flees in a state of shock, while Ophelia explains to Louis that someone (Beeks) paid her so Louis would enjoy the "prank." His life continues to deteriorate. His bank accounts have been frozen and he has been locked out of his home by his devoted butler, Coleman (Denholm Elliott), who is unhappily forced to take part in the Dukes' plan since he is technically in their employ. Ophelia takes pity on the broken Winthorpe and takes him back to her apartment.
Meanwhile, street hustler Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) had been arrested when he innocently bumped into Louis, his action perceived as a robbery attempt. When Billy Ray is briefly jailed, he attempts to intimidate his hulking cellmates with his purported karate abilities, such as the Quart of Blood Technique. The Dukes bail him out and invite him into their limousine, and then into their supposed program that assists underprivileged members of society.
Billy Ray is brought to his new house (formerly Louis') and eventually accepts his new luxury, inviting all of the patrons from his favorite bar back to the house for a party. However, Valentine already starts to show signs that he has been changed by wealth, seeing his guests as freeloaders. On his first day at his new job, the Dukes give Billy Ray a brief primer on their business, explaining the concept of commodities in the simplest possible terms. Billy Ray catches on in that the Dukes "make bets" and invest money on behalf of clients on whether futures will go up or down, comparing them to bookies. Eventually, Billy Ray's real-world perspective proves to be an accurate predictor of a commodity's movement.
Both characters' plights come to a head during a Duke & Duke Christmas party. Much to Mortimer's chagrin, Louis shows up dressed in a soiled Santa Claus costume, attempting to steal food at the buffet and frame Billy Ray, also brandishing a pistol. When he flees in a drunken stupor the Dukes see that Louis has hit rock bottom, and in a washroom conversation, Mortimer concedes defeat in the bet and pays the "usual amount" of their wagers: One dollar. Billy Ray, concealed in a bathroom stall, overhears the conversation and learns of the Dukes' plan to push him back on the streets while declining to restore Louis' position. The Dukes reveal their true opinion of Valentine, when Mortimer remarks in the washroom: "Do you really believe I would have a nigger run our family business, Randolph?"
Billy Ray, realizing that he's been used, follows Louis back to Ophelia's apartment. Louis attempts suicide with his pistol (comically failing), and again with an overdose of pills (nearly succeeding). He is brought back to his original home and is nursed back to health, at which point Valentine, Coleman, and Ophelia inform him of the true nature of the Dukes' nefarious scheme. The four plan their revenge, with Billy Ray theorizing that "the best way to get back at rich people is to turn them into poor people". Billy Ray and Louis have learned of the Dukes' plan to purchase (through Beeks) an advance copy of the official orange crop report, to help them corner the market in frozen concentrated orange juice. In an elaborate scheme that nearly backfires, the four manage to steal the real crop report from Beeks and deliver a fake version to the Dukes. Pooling as much money as possible, including the life savings of Ophelia (who has by now become romantically attached to Louis) and Coleman, Billy Ray and Louis head to the the New York Board of Trade at 4 World Trade Center to execute their plan. While in the trading pit, they use their knowledge of the actual crop report, along with the Dukes' misplaced trust in the fake crop report, to bankrupt the Dukes and make themselves fabulously rich. Approached by the incredulous and indignant Duke brothers, Billy Ray explains to them that he and Louis had a bet concerning the outcome of their plan. The wager: One dollar.
The movie ends with Billy Ray, Louis, Ophelia and Coleman enjoying a lavish tropical vacation.
Explanation of climax scene
With the authentic orange crop report indicating
a good harvest of fresh oranges, frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ) would
be less important to food producers and so would be likely to drop in price once
traders heard the news. However, by way of a fraudulent report, the Duke brothers
are led to believe that the orange harvest would be less successful, necessitating
greater demand for stockpiled FCOJ in orange products in the coming year, thereby
driving the price up. By capitalizing on this knowledge (and the Duke brothers'
missteps), the protagonists are able to profit by manipulating the futures market
as follows:
Unlike a conventional stock transaction, futures contracts can
be sold even when the seller does not yet own any of the commodity. A contract
to sell, say, 15,000 pounds of FCOJ in April at $1.42 per pound, merely indicates
the seller's obligation to deliver and the buyer's obligation to purchase the
product at the specified price and time. It does not matter how or where the seller
gets the product, as long as, one way or another, he is able to deliver it at
that price at that time, even if it results in a sale at a loss to him.
In
this case, Winthorpe and Valentine first sell FCOJ futures at $1.42 per pound,
a price inflated by the Dukes themselves. (The Duke Brothers' buying leads other
traders to believe that the Dukes are trying to corner the market, causing a buying
frenzy.) Then, when the price falls — first as a result of Winthorpe and
Valentine's eager selling, then to a much greater degree upon the release of the
real crop report indicating a good harvest — Winthorpe and Valentine buy
futures for prices between $0.46 and $0.29 per pound. Thus, for every futures
contract they had previously sold at about $1.42, they buy another back (for resale
to those who bought the expensive contracts from them previously) for only $0.46
to $0.29, resulting in a profit of $0.96 to $1.13 per pound.
Though it is
not stated in the movie exactly how much they make, if they invested roughly $500,000
from a combination of Winthorpe/Valentine's investment, the Dukes' money from
buying the "fake" report from a fake Clarence Beeks, and Coleman's and
Ophelia's savings, they would have turned it into over $10 million. It is strongly
implied that they purchased additional futures on margin and made dozens (or hundreds)
of millions more, since a lesser amount would not bankrupt the Dukes.
At the
same time that Winthorpe/Valentine sell their futures contracts, the Duke brothers
are rapidly purchasing them, even at high prices, because they incorrectly expect
that the crop report (falsely suggesting a greater need for stockpiled orange
juice) will create a demand at even higher prices, securing them a profit. When
it turns out that the leaked report they were given was fraudulent and the true
report is revealed, the price begins to plummet before they are able to sell off
their contracts. This leaves them with an obligation to buy millions of pounds
of FCOJ at a price more than a dollar per pound higher than they can sell them
for, bankrupting them.
Trivia
The score for this film is largely
from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which features the story of a lower-class
person getting the best of his upper-class master.
The punch line of the story
Bunny (Susan Fallender) tells at the tennis club ("... and she stepped on
the ball") is a reference to Auntie Mame (1958), in which Gloria Upson, a
snob, tells a joke with the same punch line (to which no one laughs).
The
phrase "See You Next Wednesday" appears in all of Landis' films in some
fashion. In this film, it appears printed on a poster in Ophelia's apartment.
Louis's inmate number, 7474505B, is featured in two other Aykroyd movies:
The Blues Brothers and The Couch Trip.
The Duke brothers appear as two homeless
men in Murphy's 1988 movie Coming to America. Murphy's character hands a wad of
cash to a homeless man, who is revealed to be Mortimer. Randolph observes and
says, "Mortimer, we're back," as a snippet of the score from Trading
Places can be heard. Both films were directed by John Landis.
In 2000, readers
of Total Film magazine voted Trading Places the 33rd-greatest comedy film of all
time.
In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Spy Buddies", Mr. Krabs
and Plankton switch lives to see if they could do each other's jobs well or not,
and bet one dollar, an obvious reference to Trading Places. Also, in another episode,
the method that Krabs uses to prove that Plankton was stealing is the same way
Beeks frames Winthorpe.
The $1.13 per pound price change on FCOJ futures that
generated Winthorpe and Valentine's huge profit would be unlikely in the real
FCOJ futures market. The exchange that houses the FCOJ futures trading imposes
a daily limit of 10 cents per pound on the price movement of the near month contract
from its previous day's settlement price. Most commodities futures contracts have
daily limits. After the FCOJ price is 10 cents away from the prior settlement
price, trading is halted and the market is referred to as "limit up"
or "limit down". Trading reopens if prices are again within the limit,
and the next day the price can change 10 cents again. The price limit can be widened
under certain market conditions.
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