Movies: Trading Places
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What is the main plot of Trading Places?
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He's watched every movie more than once. He's Stephen Fennec.
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He's watched the latest Disney movies with his kids, but that's about it. He's Trevor Long.
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With Stephen Fennec and Trevor Long. This is the captain. Brace for impact.
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Best Movies You've Never Seen, our podcast about movies. My name is Stephen Fennec and the idea of this show is that I come up with a movie that I've seen many times. My name is Stephen Fennec. I'm the movie guy, and I show them for the very first time to my co-host, Trevor Long. I'm not the movie guy. Then gives his opinion of the show and fresh eyes on a show that may have been released decades ago, which is in this case the case with Trading Places, released in 1983.
Wow. Okay.
And it was, of course, starring Eddie Murphy. You were like 22? Not quite. Okay. Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, directed by John Landis. So, yeah, big hit at the time, big stars. Now, the film concept, so the idea behind the movie... was a result of a tennis game.
Right.
So there were two brothers who were doctors. This is the screenwriter explaining how he came up with the idea. Two brothers who were both doctors, who I would play tennis with on a fairly regular basis, and they were incredibly irritating to play with because they had a major sibling rivalry going on all the time about everything. So the screenwriter then presented the idea, his name was Timothy Harris, about brothers arguing the nature versus nurture debate. So he explained that to his writing partner and they thought, you know what, they went to work and they came up with the script. This is what they created. Yeah. Yeah, wow. Now the original title, I know we have by any other name, which we'll get to later, but the original title for this was Black and White.
Yeah. You can see why he wouldn't go with that.
Yeah.
Well, John Landis naturally hated it.
How did the idea for Trading Places originate?
Yeah. And even went so far as in his, within the production, pre-production, offered $100 to anyone who could come up with a better title. And that's Trading Places became that title. Yeah, good move. Yeah. He later, though, directed, you know how he directed the music video for Thriller, John Landis did. Did he do Black and White as well? He did Black and White as well. So he went on to do that in 1991. Black and White. Was that the one with Macaulay Culkin? Yes. Yeah, the boom box at the start. Yes. Great.
One of the great video clips of all time.
Remember how it was using the morphing? Yeah, the morphing. So the woman would morph into someone else. I only remember the start and the end of it. Okay. Yeah, it's when they're banging on the door. Yeah. I remember whenever I used to listen to that, I thought someone was actually banging on my door.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's crazy. Great song. Now, one of the things that director John Landis explained, he said that this film was produced by Paramount, right? So that was the studio behind it. And he was trying to – he wanted Jamie Lee Curtis in the movie. Yep. And it was a tough sell for Paramount. They thought, you know what, she'd done Halloween and those sort of horror films, but wasn't really a known quantity when it came to comedy. Okay, so this is early days, right. But he admitted that she would be willing to perform topless. And boom, that changed the executives' minds after they saw a photo of her in a bikini. They went, hire that woman. And that's how she got it. Later on, I'll tell you, she has got a response later, I'm pretty sure I've included it, of what it was like at the time.
Is she proud of this? Should she have done it? I'll explain that later.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main plot of Trading Places?
0:06–3:33
2
How did the idea for Trading Places originate?
3:33–5:43
3
What challenges did Jamie Lee Curtis face in her role?
5:43–8:50
4
How do the characters Billy Ray and Lewis evolve throughout the film?
8:50–10:30
5
What is the significance of the bet made by the Duke brothers?
10:30–12:21
6
How does the film address themes of class and greed?
12:21–15:33
7
What are some notable performances in Trading Places?
15:33–17:24
8
What is the legacy of Trading Places in film history?
17:24–56:25
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Two Blokes Talking Tech
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