Trading Places
Trading Places is a 1983 American comedy film directed by John Landis, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. It tells the story of an upperclass commodities broker and a homeless street hustler whose lives cross paths when they are unknowingly made part of an elaborate bet. Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, and Jamie Lee Curtis also star. The storyline is often called a modern take on Mark Twains classic 19thcentury novel The Prince and the Pauper. It also bears a resemblance to another of Mark Twains stories, The Million Pound Bank Note.
Duke brothers Randolph Ralph Bellamy and Mortimer Don Ameche own a successful commodities brokerage in Philadelphia. Holding opposing views on the issue of nature versus nurture, they make a wager of the usual amount and agree to conduct an experiment switching the lives of two people at opposite sides of the social hierarchy and observing the results. They witness an encounter between their managing directorthe wellmannered and educated Louis Winthorpe III Dan Aykroyd, engaged to the Dukes grandniece Penelopeand a poor street hustler named Billy Ray Valentine Eddie Murphy Valentine is arrested at Winthorpes insistence because of a suspected robbery attempt. The Dukes decide to use the two men for their experiment.Winthorpe is publicly framed as a thief, drug dealer and adulterer by Clarence Beeks Paul Gleason at the request of the Dukes. Winthorpe is fired from Duke amp Duke, his bank accounts are frozen, he is denied entry to his Dukeowned home, and he quickly finds himself vilified by Penelope and his former friends. He befriends Ophelia Jamie Lee Curtis, a prostitute who agrees to help him in exchange for a financial reward once he is exonerated. Meanwhile, the Dukes bail Valentine out of jail, install him in Winthorpes former job and grant him use of Winthorpes home. Valentine soon becomes wellversed in the business using his street smarts to achieve success, and begins to act wellmannered. ........
Source: Wikipedia
