60 Fun Facts About Trading Places

Who directed Trading Places?

He had already made Animal House and The Blues Brothers, and he pitched the script as an updated 1930s screwball comedy with swearing and nudity added.

In what year was Trading Places released in theaters?

It opened in June, wedged between Return of the Jedi and Superman III in a record-breaking summer.

Which city is the main setting for the film's story?

The writers chose the city for its links to the founding of the United States and the American dream, then undercut that idealism with a hustler begging on its streets.

What is the name of the street hustler played by Murphy?

Murphy rewrote many of his own lines because he felt a white writer would give a Black character clichés like 'jive turkey'.

Which commodity do the heroes use to bankrupt the Duke brothers on the trading floor?

The writers had studied real attempts to corner wheat and silver but decided that a mundane breakfast staple would be funnier.

How much money do the Duke brothers wager on their experiment?

The tiny stake is the point: two men's lives are upended for pocket change, and Winthorpe later pays the same sum to settle his own bet with his new partner.

What is the name of Winthorpe's loyal butler?

The English butler ends up pooling his life savings with the others to fund the scheme, and joins them on the beach in the final scene.

What is the name of the prostitute, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who takes in the disgraced Winthorpe?

She helps him on the understanding that she will be paid once he is cleared, money she plans to use to fund her retirement.

Which veteran actor played the Duke brother Mortimer, returning to films after more than a decade away?

The casting director had insisted the actor was dead; he was eventually located through directory assistance in Santa Monica.

Which comedy duo was Trading Places originally developed for?

The pair were hot after Stir Crazy, but the project was recast after Pryor was badly burned in a freebasing accident.

Under what working title was the script first sold to Paramount?

The director hated the title but loved the script, which he compared to the class satires of Capra and Sturges.

Which Mozart opera provides the underlying musical theme for the score?

Its overture plays over the opening credits, and the story of a servant outwitting his wealthy master neatly foreshadows the plot.

Who composed the film's score, earning an Academy Award nomination?

He had scored The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London for the same director, and wove in Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance alongside the Mozart.

Which actor played the Dukes' hired fixer, Clarence Beeks?

Two years later he would play another authority figure audiences loved to hate: Principal Vernon in The Breakfast Club.

Which Watergate figure was offered the role of Clarence Beeks before turning it down?

He lost interest once he learned the character ends up caged with a gorilla; as a wink, Beeks is shown reading his autobiography on the train.

Where was the climactic trading-floor scene actually filmed?

The scene was scripted for Chicago, but permission was refused. Most people on screen are real traders, and a weekday attempt had to be abandoned after the stars distracted the floor.

Which actor was the director's first choice for Mortimer Duke, before failing an insurance physical?

When the replacement was finally tracked down, he refused the part until he was paid the same fee that had been offered to the original choice.

The final beach scene was shot on which island?

It was the last shot of a 78-day schedule that had begun in a freezing Philadelphia December.

Jamie Lee Curtis got seven figures for Halloween II. Roughly what was her fee for Trading Places?

She took the pay cut to escape being typecast as a scream queen, and later said the part single-handedly changed the course of her life.

How large is the margin call the Duke brothers cannot meet at the end of the film?

Unable to pay, they have their exchange seats sold and every corporate and personal asset seized.

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

Trading on a stolen crop report, exactly what the Dukes attempt, was not actually illegal in commodities markets until the reform passed.

Which regulator cited Trading Places in 2010 congressional testimony on commodities reform?

He walked lawmakers through the plot, explaining how the heroes intercept the misappropriated report and use it to ruin the Dukes.

In which 1988 film do the two Duke brothers return, now homeless, and get handed a wad of cash?

Prince Akeem hands the homeless pair a wad of cash; the 2021 sequel reveals they used it to rebuild their business.

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

They took the supporting actor and supporting actress prizes at the 37th British Academy Film Awards; the screenwriters were nominated but lost.

The film's only Academy Award nomination came in which category?

The composer lost to the team behind Yentl, the same film that beat Trading Places for the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy.

Murphy lost the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy to which performer?

The winner's turn as a boozy professor in Educating Rita beat both Murphy and the film's own bid for Best Musical or Comedy.

Where did Trading Places rank among its year's highest-grossing films in the US and Canada?

It earned about $90.4 million, just behind Flashdance and well behind Terms of Endearment and Return of the Jedi, without ever reaching number one at the weekend box office.

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

Return of the Jedi, in its third week, took the top spot; Trading Places still went on to spend seventeen straight weeks in the top ten.

Which rock and roll pioneer has a cameo as a pawnbroker?

He is one of several musical guests; the soundtrack also features Little Eva, Brenda Lee and the Silhouettes.

Muppets puppeteer Frank Oz appears in a cameo as what?

Fellow Muppeteer Richard Hunt also turns up, as Wilson, the Dukes' broker on the trading floor.

Saturday Night Live writers Al Franken and Tom Davis play what roles on the New Year's Eve train?

The train sequence also features Jim Belushi as a partygoer named Harvey and mime Don McLeod inside the gorilla suit.

What is the name of Winthorpe's fiancée, the Dukes' grandniece?

Her friend Muffy is played by Kelly Curtis, Jamie Lee's real-life sister.

In an ad-libbed jail scene, Murphy's character compares Randolph Duke to which pop star?

Improvisation was encouraged; the 'quart of blood' technique in the same jail scene was also made up on the spot.

Paramount objected to a line about which cigarette brand being stubbed out on a Persian rug?

The studio worried the joke was racist because the brand was marketed heavily to African Americans; Murphy insisted the line go back in.

When posing as a European exchange student to fool Beeks, Curtis's character speaks with what accent?

The disguise was improvised: she wore German-style clothing but could not manage a German accent, so she used a different one.

Which landmark's exterior and lobby stood in for the Duke & Duke headquarters?

The Mint doubled as the police station, and the Curtis Institute appeared as the exterior of the Heritage Club near Rittenhouse Square.

Which British comedian was considered for the butler role but refused to film more than seven miles from home?

John Gielgud was also considered before Denholm Elliott took the part and won a BAFTA for it.

According to the actor who played Mortimer Duke, Trading Places was which numbered film of his career?

Ralph Bellamy said it was his 99th, prompting Murphy to joke that the three of them had made 201 films between them.

Who wrote the screenplay for Trading Places?

The pair went on to write Twins and Kindergarten Cop, and later sued the producer over a promised half-percent of profits.

Playing what sport against two bickering rich brothers gave Timothy Harris the film's idea?

He came home from one session convinced the frugal, competitive brothers were 'awful' people, and imagined them betting on nature versus nurture.

The film's central premise is most often compared to which Mark Twain novel?

Critics have also linked it to Twain's short story 'The Million Pound Bank Note', in which two brothers bet on what a poor man will do with an unusable banknote.

A stage musical adaptation of Trading Places premiered in 2022 in which city?

The adaptation gender-swapped Billy Ray into Billie Rae and reimagined Ophelia as a Puerto Rican drag queen; a Broadway transfer has been in development.

Trading Places tied at 33rd on the WGA's 101 Funniest Screenplays list with which film?

A 2017 BBC poll of 253 critics ranked it the 74th funniest film ever made.

In which country has Trading Places been a Christmas Eve television tradition since the 1980s?

It made its TV debut there in 1986 and has been a holiday staple ever since, despite the story running from Christmas into the New Year.

Which aria does Winthorpe hum on his way to work in the film's opening?

In it Figaro vows to overturn his master's schemes, foreshadowing what the disgraced broker will do to the Dukes.

To what price per pound do orange juice futures collapse after the real crop report is broadcast?

The Dukes had bought at up to $1.42 a pound; the heroes buy back their short positions from everyone but the Dukes' broker at the bottom.

How many days did principal photography last?

Shooting began on December 13, 1982 in a freezing Philadelphia and wrapped on March 1, 1983.

Which broadcaster added an 'outdated attitudes' disclaimer to Trading Places in 2020?

It was one of 16 films given the warning; the director of the documentary The N-Word has argued the film's most controversial scene should never be censored.

Shortly after the film's release, Paramount signed Murphy to an exclusive five-film deal worth how much?

Industry experts soon voted him the biggest box-office star after Clint Eastwood, and he left Saturday Night Live the following year.

In 2019, an anonymous seller sold a share of the film's royalties for how much?

The stake had been paying out around $10,000 a year, so the price worked out to about 14 years of income.

How was the forged USDA report meant to differ from the real forecast?

The forgery pushes the Dukes to buy heavily on the expectation of scarcity; the real report predicts a normal harvest and the price craters.

Which actor did the studio suggest for Trading Places after Richard Pryor became unavailable?

Paramount had soured on 48 Hrs. until test audiences loved it; the director had never heard of him and flew to New York after watching audition tapes.

What was the estimated budget of Trading Places?

It returned more than $90 million in the US and Canada alone and about $120.6 million worldwide.

Which building, now a community college, served as the police station exterior?

Center City townhouses played the Winthorpe home and the Curtis Institute of Music stood in for the Heritage Club.

The Duke & Duke upstairs offices were filmed inside which New York building?

The Heritage Club interior was shot in the then-abandoned Chamber of Commerce Building.

Jamie Lee Curtis turned down which 1983 horror sequel to escape being typecast as a scream queen?

Her mother Janet Leigh had famously starred in the original Psycho in 1960.

Where is Billy Ray Valentine introduced, pretending to be crippled, in Philadelphia?

Murphy drew such crowds in Philadelphia that a police officer was stationed outside his trailer.

Which film beat Trading Places to the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy in 1984?

Yentl also beat Elmer Bernstein's score at the Oscars, a double blow for the Landis film.

In which month and year was Trading Places first released on DVD?

The 2007 'Looking Good, Feeling Good' collector's edition added deleted scenes and interviews with financial experts.

Which 2021 film reveals the Dukes used Prince Akeem's donation to rebuild their business?

Murphy has said he prefers Coming to America to Trading Places because it let him play multiple characters.