Trading Places Trivia
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60 free Trading Places trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Trading Places trivia quiz covers the whole of the 1983 comedy: the Duke brothers' one-dollar bet, Louis Winthorpe III's fall, Billy Ray Valentine's rise, Ophelia and Coleman, Clarence Beeks and the gorilla, and the frozen concentrated orange juice sting on the trading floor. There are questions on the plot, the cast and the finale that finance professors still use to explain short selling. The behind-the-scenes half digs into how the script was written for Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, why Paramount fought the casting of Jamie Lee Curtis, how a supposedly dead Don Ameche was found through directory assistance, where the trading floor scenes were really shot, which lines were ad-libbed, and how the film ended up cited in congressional testimony and nicknamed into the Dodd-Frank Act. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer has been checked against a reliable source.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Trading Places?
John Landis
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.
Q 02Trading Places opened behind which chart-topping sequel?
Return of the Jedi
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'.
Q 03In which city is the brokerage Duke & Duke based in Trading Places?
Philadelphia
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.
Q 04What is the name of Eddie Murphy's street hustler in Trading Places?
Billy Ray Valentine
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.
Q 05Which commodity do the heroes of Trading Places trade to bankrupt the Duke brothers?
Orange juice
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.
Q 06In Trading Places, how much do the Duke brothers bet on their experiment?
One dollar
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.
Q 07What is the name of Winthorpe's butler in Trading Places?
Coleman
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.
Q 08In Trading Places, what is the name of Jamie Lee Curtis's character, who takes in the disgraced Winthorpe?
Ophelia
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.
Q 09Which veteran star played Mortimer Duke in Trading Places, his first film in more than a decade?
Don Ameche
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.
Q 10Which comedy duo was Trading Places originally developed for?
Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder
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.
Q 11Under what working title was the Trading Places script first sold to its studio?
Black and White
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.
Q 12Which Mozart opera supplies the main theme of the Trading Places score?
The Marriage of Figaro
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.
Q 13Who composed the score for Trading Places?
Elmer Bernstein
Q 21A 2010 Dodd-Frank provision banning trades on misappropriated government reports carries what nickname?
The Eddie Murphy rule
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.
Q 22After the Dukes explain their business in Trading Places, Eddie Murphy's character says they sound like a couple of what?
Bookies
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.'
Q 23The Duke brothers from Trading Places reappear, homeless, to be handed a wad of cash in which later Eddie Murphy film?
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.
Q 14Trading Places villain Paul Gleason played a school disciplinarian in which film?
The Breakfast Club
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.
Q 15Which Watergate figure reportedly considered playing Clarence Beeks in Trading Places before turning the part down?
G. Gordon Liddy
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.
Q 16The frantic trading-floor finale of Trading Places was shot on a real exchange inside which New York landmark?
The World Trade Center
The World Trade Center housed the COMEX commodities exchange, and real traders from its floor performed in the scene alongside the hired extras.
Q 17Which Dial M for Murder star was cast as Mortimer Duke in Trading Places but failed the insurance physical?
Ray Milland
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.
Q 18Disgraced and drunk, Winthorpe gatecrashes the Duke & Duke office party in Trading Places dressed as whom?
Santa Claus
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.
Q 19Which relative of Jamie Lee Curtis has a small role in Trading Places as one of Winthorpe's country-club friends?
Her sister
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.
Q 20At the end of Trading Places, what $394 million demand do the Duke brothers find they cannot pay?
A margin call
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.
Coming to America
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.
Q 24Which two cast members won BAFTA awards for their performances in Trading Places?
Denholm Elliott and Jamie Lee Curtis
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.
Q 25Trading Places earned its only Academy Award nomination for which part of the film?
Its score
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.
Q 26The actor who plays Mortimer Duke in Trading Places later won an Oscar for which 1985 film?
Cocoon
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.
Q 27Which Paramount dance film finished one place above Trading Places at America's 1983 box office?
Flashdance
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.
Q 28Which James Bond film opened the same weekend and pushed Trading Places into third place?
Octopussy
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.
Q 29Which rock and roll pioneer has a cameo as a pawnbroker in Trading Places?
Bo Diddley
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.
Q 30Muppets puppeteer Frank Oz has a cameo in Trading Places as what?
A police officer
A police officer logging the arrested Winthorpe's belongings: the same desk job the puppeteer had done three years earlier in The Blues Brothers.