239. Trading Places

Song - The Wall Street Shuffle (10cc)

Movie: Trading Places (John Landis, 1983)

In a famous scene in Trading Places, Eddie Murphy looks incredulously into the camera as the Duke Brothers (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) condescendingly explain the concept of a BLT sandwich to him. It is technically the only scene in the film that explicitly breaks the fourth wall, In practice, there is never much divide between Eddie Murphy and the audience. It's one of the many reasons why when I was a kid/teenager, he was pretty much my hero. There is most likely no film I've ssen more than Beverly Hills Cop, except maybe Beverly Hills Cop III, and there are still very few scenes that make me laugh more than the introduction to Serge or the malfunctioning superweapon. Murphy's willingness to get silly and ridiculous, while at the same time confidently and irreverently taking the piss out of the world around him is unmatched. And while some actors disappear into the movie and make you forget that they are acting, in his heyday, Murphy was the opposite; it was always clear that he was performing for the people watching, and committing so much to it that he almost felt like a friend who did everything he could to share his joy, energy and humor with you. His closest equivalent may well be Freddie Mercury, and it's no coincidence that Queen has become one of my favorite bands, or that Seinfeld has become one of my favorite shows. That's great because of, rather than despite, Jerry's inability to keep a straight face. Take Pulp Fiction too. When I first watched it, it was blowing my mind pretty much from the start, but I only truly fell for it during Tarantino's scenes that have very little purpose beyond expressing how much fun it is to be able to act/goof around and do cool/silly stuff for an audience. That's the real reason why you wouldn't readily see a scene like that in a movie today.  

Eddie Murphy is of course an infinitely better actor than Tarantino or Seinfeld and it shows in Trading Places. It was only his second feature film and it is still expecting that Murphy acts in the service of the story, rather than pretty much building everything around him. Yet, Murphy is so good at what he does that even this film can't stop him from going off on superbly improvised comedic setpieces. That does ocassionally mess up the film's rhythm a bit, especially in the first scenes with Murphy, and it takes until the New Year's train for everyone in the film to align and execute the kind of sublimely escalating comic chaos Murphy and Landis (The Blues Brothers is still one of the most ridiculously fun movies ever made) were so good at. It's the one sequence in the film that takes time to set up characters and situations that are inconsequential to the plot and provide space for throwaway jokes that also serve as buildup to even funnier moments. 

If Trading Places wasn't as supremely funny as I remembered (I have probably not seen this movie since I was a teen. Same goes for my other Murphy favorites, The Beverly Hills Cop's, Coming to America, The Distinguished Gentleman and Bowfinger), it makes up for that by being much sharper than I remembered. It is genuinely scabrous in its depiction of the super rich, their empty rituals, and their treatment of their (often black) servants, without making it seem as an over the top joke. The close up of 'The Heritage Club's' motto "With Liberty and Justice for All" after the club's black housekeeper kicks Murphy away is a nice example of the film's subtlety, as are the wonderful opening credits. Providing snapshots of diverse locations in Philadelpia, they are a great reminder of how easily urban divides are taken for granted and normalised. And I really liked that the film proves Randolph Duke right, nurture is indeed more important than nature, but not in the way he thinks. Louis Winthorpe (Dan Aykroyd) does turn to crime when stripped from his wealth, but he also becomes kinder and more humane when hanging out with people like Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis). In turn, the moment Ophelia gets access to a butler, she immediately starts treating him like her personal property. This also sets up the film's great ending, that is both happy and cynical.