Trivia / Trading Places

• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Randolph Duke doesn't actually say "Sell, Mortimer, sell!" towards the end of the movie. The Dukes had their own trading broker, Wilson, working at the floor of the commodities market, so Randolph actually says "We've got to get Wilson and tell him to sell!", and Mortimer later says "Wilson, for Christ's sake, sell!". In addition, earlier, Randolph says "They're selling, Mortimer."
• Career Resurrection:
  • The film completely resurrected the 75-year-old Don Ameche's film career. Once one of 20th Century Fox's top stars in the 1940s, he had only appeared in five films in the the next three decades, with nothing since 1970. He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his next film Cocoon and worked steadily for the rest of his life.
  • Dan Aykroyd's acting career had slumped because most studio executives were hesitant to cast him following John Belushi's death (John Landis claims they compared it to "Abbott without Costello"); the mixed-to-negative reception to his solo starring vehicle, Doctor Detroit, which debuted weeks before the Trading Places premiere to terrible box office, made Paramount execs especially concerned. Aykroyd's performance here and in Ghostbusters (1984) proved he could play off other actors, thus assuring him a secure career since, while Detroit has since been mostly forgotten.
• Cast the Expert: With the exception of Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, and Richard Hunt, all the traders seen towards the end are real traders, who taught them how to trade convincingly.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Latin America, the film was known as "De Mendigo A Millonario" (From Beggar to Millionaire).
  • The German title is "Die Glücksritter" (Soldiers of Fortune).
  • The Italian title is "Una Poltrona per Due" (An Armchair for Two).
  • The Danish title is "Bossen og Bumsen" (The Boss and the Bum).
• Deleted Scene:
  • A scene in the movie not included in the final cut but seen frequently when the movie is shown on television (presumably to fill a longer time slot with commercials) occurs after Clarence Beeks talks to the Dukes via telephone and Billy Ray eavesdrops on their scheme. In the original cut, Beeks goes from the phone booth to the Amtrak train platform, holding the briefcase with the crop report. In the added scene, we see Beeks procure the reports from a secured vault where he knocks out a security guard (by way of putting pills in the guard's coffee) and opens a safe-deposit box.
  • In another cut scene, when Billy Ray Valentine arrives at Duke and Duke on his first day of work. Folsey greets him just as he did Winthorpe in the beginning and asks for his coat, scarf, and gloves. All of the same people say good morning to Valentine that said good morning to Winthorpe.
• Development Gag: Former Nixon aide and Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy was approached to play the part of Clarence Beeks. In the movie, Beeks is shown reading Liddy's autobiography Will on the train.
• Fake American: Canadian Dan Aykroyd plays New Yorker Louis Winthorpe.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In Italy, the movie is considered a Christmas classic, since 1997, it's been aired on TV nearly every single year on Christmas Eve and gets good ratings with every airing.
• Life Imitates Art: A rather strange case. The orange futures scheme seems like it ought to be some kind of illegal insider trading, right? This is futures though, not the stock market. At the time of the film the scheme was entirely legal. It wasn't made illegal to trade based on illegitimately gained information in the futures market until 2010. It's generally called the "Eddie Murphy Rule" and it was inspired by the film.
• Out of Holiday Episode: The movie was released in June 1983, but takes place over the whole period between Thanksgiving through New Year's Day.
• Playing Against Type: Before this, Jamie Lee Curtis mostly played the Final Girl in slasher movies, and therefore the good wholesome character. She deliberately took the role to break away from this type of casting.
• Production Posse: In addition to John Landis bringing back Frank Oz, another Muppeteer, the late Richard Hunt, played Wilson.
• Real-Life Relative: Jamie Lee Curtis' sister Kelly has a small part in this movie. She plays the debutante "Muffy", serenaded with several other girls by the rich boys in the scene where Winthorpe is begging for his friend's re-acceptance. Her future brother-in-law Nicholas Guest also appears as Winthorpe's friend Harry.
• Technology Marches On:
  • With the advent of more sophisticated computerization, modern commodities markets have "breakers" that prevent prices from changing as rapidly as depicted in the film, precisely to avoid the sort of mess the Dukes tried to cause and profit from, as well as the kind of mess they ended up getting themselves into. These limits were added a few years after the film was made (a result of the infamous 1987 stock market crash).
  • Not to mention that the trading process is fully computerized now and the major trading floors don't have all those floor people anymore.
  • Louis tries to sell his watch at a pawnshop, mentioning how it's waterproof up to 3 atmospheres (about 100 feet of water depth) as proof of how top-of-the-line it is. Today, many watches are waterproof to as many as 50 atmospheres (1,700 feet).^note Although if you're that far underwater and not inside a submarine or deep-sea diving suit, you've got other things to worry about than 'What time is it?'
  • Several well-off characters using payphones instead of cell phones. The car phones are also built into the car and wired (old car phones were actually radios that connected to an operator who would then redirect your call).
  • The Dukes even have a small computer screen built into the back of their car that displays certain stocks. It has a resolution that would have been pitiful for even an early Blackberry but at the time would have shown how exceedingly rich and devoted to the market the Dukes were.
• Those Two Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Aykroyd would later work together on Christmas with the Kranks and the two My Girl movies.
• Throw It In!:
  • When Randolph tosses Mortimer's money clip back, Don Ameche bounces it back and forth a couple of times before catching it.
  • Ophelia's "Swedish" disguise came about because Jamie Lee Curtis couldn't do the correct Austrian accent. Upon seeing her, Coleman's line "But you're wearing lederhosen" was unscripted and was a genuinely confused reaction from Denholm Elliott which the director decided to keep.
• Vindicated by Cable: The movie was a box office hit, but might have faded into obscurity, if not for constant replaying on cable around Christmas-time, even though the movie is not inherently a "Christmas movie" (it could be set at any other time of the year, and you'd get the same movie).
• Wag the Director: Don Ameche abhorred swearing and only agreed to shoot one take each of the scenes where his character uses the n-word and drops an f-bomb, respectively.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The movie was originally written as a Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder vehicle, but when Pryor dropped out and Eddie Murphy signed on, he asked that Wilder be replaced, because he didn't want people thinking he was trying to be another Pryor.
  • Dudley Moore was considered for Louis Winthorpe III.
  • John Gielgud turned down the role of Coleman.
  • Ray Milland was the first choice for Mortimer Duke.
  • The baggage handlers were supposed to be the McKenzie Brothers, but that fell through.
  • Former Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy was interested in playing Clarence Beeks, but decided against it when he found his character would become the romantic partner of a gorilla.
• Working Title: Black and White.

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