Trading Places

Synopsis: Louis Winthorpe is a businessman who works for commodities brokerage firm of Duke and Duke owned by the brothers Mortimer and Randolph Duke. Now they bicker over the most trivial of matters and what they are bickering about is whether it's a person's environment or heredity that determines how well they will do in life. When Winthorpe bumps into Billy Ray Valentine, a street hustler and assumes he is trying to rob him, he has him arrested. Upon seeing how different the two men are, the brothers decide to make a wager as to what would happen if Winthorpe loses his job, his home and is shunned by everyone he knows and if Valentine was given Winthorpe's job. So they proceed to have Winthorpe arrested and to be placed in a compromising position in front of his girlfriend. So all he has to rely on is the hooker who was hired to ruin him.
Genre: Comedy
Director(s): John Landis
Production: Paramount Pictures
  Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 3 wins & 4 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.5
Metacritic:
69
Rotten Tomatoes:
86%
R
Year:
1983
116 min
2,628 Views


Your breakfast, sir.

Pork bellies! I have a hunch

something exciting is going to happen

in the pork belly market this morning.

Will Miss Penelope

be dining with you this evening, sir?

Yes. Yes, she will.

- Good morning, Mr Winthorpe.

- Morning, Folsey.

- Morning, Mr Winthorpe.

- Good morning.

- Morning, Mr Winthorpe.

- Morning.

- Morning, Mr Winthorpe.

- Morning.

Good morning, Mr Winthorpe.

- Morning, Mr Winthorpe.

- Morning, Mr Winthorpe.

- Good morning, Mr Winthorpe.

- Morning.

- Good morning, Mr Winthorpe.

- Morning.

Pork bellies. I knew it. I knew it!

- Good morning, Mr Duke.

- Good morning, Mr Duke.

- Good morning, Mr Duke.

- Morning, Mr Duke.

- Morning, Mr Duke.

- Morning, Mr Duke.

- Mr Duke.

- Good morning, Mr Duke.

Good morning, Mr Duke.

When do we sell?

How stupid these scientists are!

The eternal question! There is no question.

The answer's obvious.

I don't care about

heredity versus environment.

I'm sick and tired of hearing it. I care

how much we get for our pork bellies.

Winthorpe will sell

at 76 and a quarter.

His charts say that's as high as it'll go.

It'll never get that high. Let's sell now.

Patience, Mortimer.

Let's see if Winthorpe's right.

Winthorpe's wrong. It's topped out.

I say we sell now.

- Just another few seconds.

- The market's closing.

We won't get the order in.

We just made an extra $347,000.

Get me Winthorpe.

Well, I never had an instant

of doubt in my mind, Mortimer.

Yes, I'm sure a lot of people

went belly-up on that one.

I'll see you at the club.

Morning Mr Duke.

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

Thank you very much.

Vietnam did this to me

but I'm not bitter, thank you.

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah?

Spare a poor war veteran some change?

I'm on my knees for life.

I have no money to give you.

Please, anything.

A quarter, just a couple of dollars.

Anything, a quarter, a nickel, please.

Hey, man, I really don't appreciate this.

I don't care what it is,

smoked ham, anything, a jacket.

Thanks! How'd you

like a stump up your ass?

- Stay outta here!

- You've got a lot of soul. I appreciate it.

Listen to this.

"Expect this stagnation to continue,

"until the Department Of Agriculture's

January crop report."

Exactly as we thought, Randolph.

Wrong! Quite wrong. Untrue.

They've given this genetics fellow

the Nobel Prize. He doesn't know

the first thing about human nature.

We're about to make

millions of dollars in frozen orange juice

and you're talking about human nature.

Money isn't everything.

Grow up.

Mother always said you were greedy.

She meant it as a compliment.

Ezra, right on time.

I bet you thought

I'd forgotten your Christmas bonus.

There you are.

Five dollars!

Maybe I'll go to the movies...

by myself.

- Half of it is from me.

- Thank you, Mr Mortimer.

- Gentlemen.

- Looking good, Louis.

Feeling good, Todd.

We need a fourth for squash today, Louis.

Are you interested?

No can do. I'll be having dinner

with Penelope, tonight.

- Oh, lucky you.

- It's not luck, Todd.

Randolph, Mortimer.

What have you got for us?

It's that time of the month again.

Payroll cheques for our employees,

which require your signatures.

And no forgetting to sign the big ones.

We are paying some of our employees

an awful lot of money.

You can't get around

the minimum wage.

$50,000 to Clarence Beeks!

Who the hell...

I meant to ask you about that.

I went through our records,

and there doesn't seem to be

a Clarence Beeks employed with the firm.

Oh, Clarence Beeks.

Yes, of course.

- He's doing something top secret for us.

- Research.

How is Penelope?

Don't forget she's our grandniece - you'd

better make an honest woman of her.

Well, I'll certainly try, sir.

The wedding invitations go out this week.

Good. Good work, Winthorpe.

Don't worry about this,

Winthorpe.

I'll take care of this one personally.

- Goodbye, Winthorpe.

- Goodbye, Winthorpe.

Winthorpe is a very steady young man.

We're lucky

to have him managing our firm.

Oh, hogwash. Exeter, Harvard -

he's the product of good environment.

It's got nothing to do with environment.

With his genes, you could put him

anywhere and he'd come out on top.

Breeding, same as in race horses.

It's in the blood.

Hey, baby, what's happening?

How you doing?

Once you've had a man with no legs,

you never go back.

I know what you're thinking.

You seen "Porgy And Bess"?

We can make it, baby. Me and you.

You b*tch!

- Who's that? Who's there?

- Police!

We've had complaints about con men

pretending to be blind and crippled.

I ain't seen nothing since

I stepped on that landmine in Vietnam.

It was very painful.

You were in 'Nam? So were we. Where?

I was in... Sang Bang...

Dang Gong...

I was all over the place, a lot of places.

What unit?

I was with the Green Berets,

Special Unit Battalions...

Commando Airborne Tactics...

Specialist Tactics Unit Battalion.

Yeah, it was real hush hush.

I was Agent Orange,

Special Agent Orange, that was me.

Airborne, huh?

I can see! I can see!

I have... I have legs.

I have... Oh sh*t, look at this.

Legs! I can walk.

Jesus, praise Jesus.

I appreciate this. Oh, this is beautiful.

I can't believe... Thank you.

I don't know what to do it's...

Glory be to God. Praise Jesus.

Look at me.

This is too much. I can't believe it.

Ah, beautiful. Listen... I can't thank you.

Rate this script:4.0 / 1 vote

Timothy Harris

Timothy Sylvester Harris (born 6 December 1964) is the current Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis, in office since 2015. He previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 10 August 2001 to 25 January 2008, as Minister for Finance from 2008 to 2010, and Senior Minister and Minister for Agriculture from 2010 to 2013. more…

All Timothy Harris scripts | Timothy Harris Scripts

0 fans

Submitted on August 05, 2018

Discuss this script with the community:

0 Comments

    Translation

    Translate and read this script in other languages:

    Select another language:

    • - Select -
    • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
    • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
    • Español (Spanish)
    • Esperanto (Esperanto)
    • 日本語 (Japanese)
    • Português (Portuguese)
    • Deutsch (German)
    • العربية (Arabic)
    • Français (French)
    • Русский (Russian)
    • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
    • 한국어 (Korean)
    • עברית (Hebrew)
    • Gaeilge (Irish)
    • Українська (Ukrainian)
    • اردو (Urdu)
    • Magyar (Hungarian)
    • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
    • Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Italiano (Italian)
    • தமிழ் (Tamil)
    • Türkçe (Turkish)
    • తెలుగు (Telugu)
    • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
    • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
    • Čeština (Czech)
    • Polski (Polish)
    • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Românește (Romanian)
    • Nederlands (Dutch)
    • Ελληνικά (Greek)
    • Latinum (Latin)
    • Svenska (Swedish)
    • Dansk (Danish)
    • Suomi (Finnish)
    • فارسی (Persian)
    • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
    • հայերեն (Armenian)
    • Norsk (Norwegian)
    • English (English)

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "Trading Places" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Apr. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/trading_places_22174>.

    We need you!

    Help us build the largest writers community and scripts collection on the web!

    Watch the movie trailer

    Trading Places

    Browse Scripts.com

    The Studio:

    ScreenWriting Tool

    Write your screenplay and focus on the story with many helpful features.