60 Fun Facts About Trading Places

Who directed Trading Places?

John Landis took the film because its script read like a 1930s screwball comedy in the Capra and Sturges mould: an old-fashioned social comedy that was really about class.

Trading Places opened behind which chart-topping sequel?

Return of the Jedi was in its third weekend and still took $12 million. Trading Places opened in third place but, in its co-writer's words, 'just kept going and going'.

In which city is the brokerage Duke & Duke based in Trading Places?

Philadelphia supplied the streets and exteriors, but the director admits that many of the interiors that are supposed to be there were really filmed in New York.

What is the name of Eddie Murphy's street hustler in Trading Places?

Billy Ray Valentine is first seen begging as a blind, legless Vietnam veteran, a con that ends when two cops hoist him off his cart and he thanks them for the miracle.

Which commodity do the heroes of Trading Places trade to bankrupt the Duke brothers?

Orange juice futures hit $1.42 a pound on the trading floor and crash to 29 cents within minutes; the heroes sell at the peak and buy back at the bottom, leaving the Dukes holding the contracts.

In Trading Places, how much do the Duke brothers bet on their experiment?

One dollar, 'the usual amount', is all the brothers wager, and at the end the heroes settle a bet of their own for exactly the same sum.

What is the name of Winthorpe's butler in Trading Places?

Coleman is told about the experiment from the start and plays along with his employers, yet he ends up handing the heroes his life savings to stake on the trading floor.

In Trading Places, what is the name of Jamie Lee Curtis's character, who takes in the disgraced Winthorpe?

Ophelia calls him her investment: she nurses and houses him on the promise of a payout once his name is cleared, money for the early retirement she is saving towards.

Which veteran star played Mortimer Duke in Trading Places, his first film in more than a decade?

Don Ameche was so forgotten that the casting director thought he was dead; with no agent on file, the director traced him to Santa Monica through a studio secretary's tip.

Which comedy duo was Trading Places originally developed for?

Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder were a hot ticket after Stir Crazy, so the script was built around them; when Pryor dropped out, both leads were recast.

Under what working title was the Trading Places script first sold to its studio?

Black and White was the name on the script its director was sent, and he called it a lousy title; years later he directed a famous music video called Black or White.

Which Mozart opera supplies the main theme of the Trading Places score?

The Marriage of Figaro, whose overture opens the film, is about a servant outwitting his scheming aristocratic master, so the music quietly gives away the plot.

Who composed the score for Trading Places?

Elmer Bernstein had been Hollywood's go-to comedy composer ever since he scored Animal House as if it were a serious drama; here he bent Mozart to mock the stuffy brokerage.

Trading Places villain Paul Gleason played a school disciplinarian in which film?

The Breakfast Club cast him as Richard Vernon, who keeps five students in all-day Saturday detention; in 2001 he sent the role up himself in Not Another Teen Movie.

Which Watergate figure reportedly considered playing Clarence Beeks in Trading Places before turning the part down?

G. Gordon Liddy, architect of the Watergate break-in, is said to have been keen until he read the fate that awaits Beeks on the train, and decided against it.

The frantic trading-floor finale of Trading Places was shot on a real exchange inside which New York landmark?

The World Trade Center housed the COMEX commodities exchange, and real traders from its floor performed in the scene alongside the hired extras.

Which Dial M for Murder star was cast as Mortimer Duke in Trading Places but failed the insurance physical?

Ray Milland was already announced in the cast when his health ruled him out shortly before shooting; his replacement then held out until the studio matched Milland's fee.

Disgraced and drunk, Winthorpe gatecrashes the Duke & Duke office party in Trading Places dressed as whom?

Santa Claus is his cover for sneaking drugs into his replacement's desk drawer; caught in the act, he pulls a gun and backs out of the party.

Which relative of Jamie Lee Curtis has a small role in Trading Places as one of Winthorpe's country-club friends?

Her sister Kelly, who had worked as a stockbroker before turning to acting, is one of the club set, the friends who turn their backs on the ruined commodities man.

At the end of Trading Places, what $394 million demand do the Duke brothers find they cannot pay?

A margin call falls due at the closing bell, and when the brothers cannot find the cash their seats on the exchange are sold and everything they own is seized.

A 2010 Dodd-Frank provision banning trades on misappropriated government reports carries what nickname?

The Eddie Murphy rule was proposed by a regulator who cited the plot of Trading Places to Congress: until 2010, trading commodities on a stolen government report was not actually illegal.

After the Dukes explain their business in Trading Places, Eddie Murphy's character says they sound like a couple of what?

Bookies is his verdict once he learns the brokerage collects its commission whether clients win or lose, and a delighted Randolph says, 'I told you he'd understand.'

The Duke brothers from Trading Places reappear, homeless, to be handed a wad of cash in which later Eddie Murphy film?

Coming to America has Prince Akeem press the money on the two down-and-outs, who take it as their fresh start; the same two actors came back to play them five years on.

Which two cast members won BAFTA awards for their performances in Trading Places?

Denholm Elliott and Jamie Lee Curtis took both supporting prizes, a sweet result for her: the studio had fought her casting, seeing only a B-movie horror actress.

Trading Places earned its only Academy Award nomination for which part of the film?

Its score competed in a since-retired category for adaptations and song scores, because so much of the music is reworked Mozart rather than original composition.

The actor who plays Mortimer Duke in Trading Places later won an Oscar for which 1985 film?

Cocoon cast him as a retiree rejuvenated by mysterious waters, and the comeback that Trading Places had started ended with the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Which Paramount dance film finished one place above Trading Places at America's 1983 box office?

Flashdance, dismissed by critics as a full-length music video, still edged out its well-reviewed stablemate: the two ended the year third and fourth at the American box office.

Which James Bond film opened the same weekend and pushed Trading Places into third place?

Octopussy took $8.9 million to the newcomer's $7.3 million that weekend, but Trading Places had the longer legs and ended the year more than $20 million ahead of it.

Which rock and roll pioneer has a cameo as a pawnbroker in Trading Places?

Bo Diddley closes the scene by selling the ruined broker a pistol, a sly touch for the man who recorded an album called Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger.

Muppets puppeteer Frank Oz has a cameo in Trading Places as what?

A police officer logging the arrested Winthorpe's belongings: the same desk job the puppeteer had done three years earlier in The Blues Brothers.

Comedy partners Al Franken and Tom Davis play what roles on the New Year's Eve train in Trading Places?

Baggage handlers, in a blink-and-miss-it gag for the writing duo; a quarter of a century later Franken was sitting in the United States Senate for Minnesota.

In Trading Places, what is the name of Winthorpe's fiancée, the Duke brothers' grandniece?

Penelope Witherspoon bails him out of jail, then walks away for good when a stranger, paid by the Dukes' fixer, kisses him and begs for drugs.

On meeting Randolph Duke in Trading Places, Eddie Murphy's character likens his name to which singer's?

Randy Jackson, the youngest of the Jackson brothers, was not a scripted joke: the director lists the line among the many gags made up on the spot during filming.

In Trading Places, which cigarette brand does Eddie Murphy's character find stubbed out on his Persian rug?

Kool butts on the carpet are the last straw at his first party in the townhouse: he throws out every guest and tells the butler they were freeloaders.

In Trading Places, Jamie Lee Curtis's character dons lederhosen to fool Beeks but speaks with which accent?

Swedish, not the accent her Alpine outfit called for: she couldn't manage that one, so the mismatch was improvised and left in as a joke.

In Trading Places, Randolph says their mother always called Mortimer greedy; Mortimer replies that she meant it as what?

A compliment, he insists; this is the brother who looks at the payroll and grumbles that staff on the minimum wage are costing an awful lot of money.

In Trading Places, what does an elderly servant say he might do with the five-dollar Christmas bonus the Dukes hand him?

Go to the movies, he says, 'by myself'; five dollars is the whole bonus, and Mortimer still makes a point of telling him that half of it is from him.

Ruined on the trading floor at the end of Trading Places, Mortimer Duke bellows for what to be turned back on?

The machines, meaning the exchange's trading equipment: he wants the session reopened so he can win it all back, even as his brother is wheeled away on a stretcher.

Trading Places writers Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod later co-wrote which comedy for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito?

Twins came five years on; Weingrod says a hit like Trading Places puts writers 'in the club', and the pair went on to Kindergarten Cop and Space Jam.

Posing as a legless beggar in Trading Places, Eddie Murphy's hustler asks a passing woman if she has seen which opera?

Porgy and Bess has a disabled street beggar for its hero, which is the joke; the director says Murphy made the line up on the spot.

The central premise of Trading Places is most often compared to which Mark Twain novel?

The Prince and the Pauper is the obvious model; critics also cite Twain's story 'The Million Pound Bank Note', in which two rich brothers bet on what a penniless man will do with an unspendable note.

The stage musical of Trading Places premiered in 2022 at the Alliance Theatre in which Southern city?

Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, which had sent The Prom on to New York, staged it with Eddie Murphy's role rewritten for a woman and the story still set in the 1980s.

Predicting a pork belly sell-off in Trading Places, Eddie Murphy's character says traders fear they can't afford which toy for Christmas?

A G.I. Joe 'with the kung-fu grip', to be exact: fathers holding contracts are panicking about money before the holidays, he reasons, so they will sell and the price will keep falling.

Italian television traditionally screens Trading Places on which night of the year?

Christmas Eve on Italia 1 means Una poltrona per due, as the film is titled there: a comedy that opened in America in June has been the channel's Christmas fixture since 1997.

In Trading Places, Winthorpe is outraged to see his replacement wearing the tie of which university?

Harvard: 'Like, oh sure, he went to Harvard,' he fumes on spotting it; by then the newcomer also has his job, his car and his house.

In the finale of Trading Places, whose televised announcement sends prices on the trading floor crashing?

The Secretary of Agriculture reads the annual crop forecast live, and the whole exchange falls silent in front of the screens; within seconds the price that had been soaring collapses.

On the New Year's Eve train in Trading Places, the heroes leave the Dukes' fixer locked in a cage with which animal?

A gorilla, bound for Africa as part of a scientific study; they dress the unconscious villain in an ape costume first, and he is last seen being shipped out with his new admirer.

The Duke brothers in Trading Places are chauffeured around in which make of car?

A Rolls-Royce: it is on its back seat, wedged between the two brothers, that the newly bailed hustler is offered a house, a bank account and an $80,000 job.

Within a year of Trading Places making him a film star, Eddie Murphy quit which television show?

Saturday Night Live had taken him on at 19; by his last live show in February 1984 he admitted he no longer thought he was funny on it, and he left to put his energy into films.

In Trading Places, what does Eddie Murphy's character smash while testing whether his new home is really his?

A vase, and the brothers only laugh: it cost $35,000 but was insured for $50,000, so, as Randolph points out, their new recruit has already made them $15,000.

In Trading Places, what does the forged crop report that the heroes hand the Dukes wrongly predict?

A poor harvest means scarcity and higher prices, so the Dukes pour everything into buying; the genuine forecast, read out an hour later, says the crop is fine.

Which 1982 buddy-cop hit was Eddie Murphy's only film before Trading Places?

48 Hrs. had not even opened when he was cast: the studio saw how preview audiences took to him and put the newcomer straight into a second lead.

In Trading Places, Randolph Duke daydreams that winning the bet will earn him which honor?

A Nobel Prize: 'I'll think of you in Stockholm,' he tells his brother, and when the pair are ruined Mortimer's parting shot is 'You and your Nobel Prize, you idiot!'

Which future Breaking Bad star plays a cellmate of Eddie Murphy's hustler in Trading Places?

Giancarlo Esposito, then in his mid-twenties, is the cellmate who swallows every boast about the newcomer's limousine and springs to his defence when the others doubt him.

In Trading Places, what does the penniless Winthorpe pawn for fifty dollars?

His watch, which he insists retails at $6,955 and tells the time in six cities at once; the pawnbroker assumes it is stolen and will not go a cent above fifty.

Jamie Lee Curtis turned down which horror sequel shortly before making Trading Places?

Psycho II would have combined the two things she said she was trying to play down, horror films and her famous parents: her mother was the star of the original's shower scene.

Who plays the pampered commodities broker Louis Winthorpe III in Trading Places?

Dan Aykroyd was a hard sell: after the death of his screen partner the studio thought he meant nothing on his own, and the director had to win an argument to cast him.

Which Barbra Streisand film beat Trading Places to the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy?

Yentl was a drama with songs, not a comedy, and Streisand's first film as a director: she won that Globe too, while Trading Places lost both of its nominations.

Which comic actor cameos in Trading Places as Harvey, a rowdy New Year's Eve party-goer on the train?

Jim Belushi, in fancy dress, pesters the heroine and trails the group down the train, where the villain knocks him cold with a pistol; that blow is the villain's undoing.

The Duke brothers' bet in Trading Places is meant to settle which age-old debate?

Nature versus nurture: Randolph says the hustler is a product of his surroundings and Mortimer says breeding always tells, so they swap two men's lives to find out.