Think big, think positive. Never show any sign of weakness. Always go
for the throat. Buy low, sell high. Fear. That's the other guy's
problem. Nothing you have ever experienced can prepare you for the
unbridled carnage you're about to witness. Super Bowl, a World Series. They don't know what
pressure is. In this building it's either kill or be killed. You make no friends
in the pits and you take no prisoners. No prisoners. One minute you're up half
a million in soybeans and the next, boom. Your kids don't go to college and
they've repossessed your Bentley. Are you with me? Yeah. We gotta kill em motherfucker.
We gotta kill them.
2 Dads 1 Movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged dads sit around
and shoot the about the movies of the 80s and 90s. Here are
your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nick Brianna.
Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. And today we are moving away from November
and Cagevember. And as much fun as that was, it's now December. If you're listening
on the day this episode comes out, it is the first Wednesday in December.
That's right. And what does that mean? That means we're getting close to Christmas.
One of the best holidays of the year in my opinion. And for
the next month we every single week we're going to open up a window on
the Dadvent calendar. Okay, now that
everybody's done roariously applauding and laughing out there in podcast world. And they probably
paused it or knocked their radio over. Oh my gosh. Broke it so wild.
Wild. They had some time to. To crack up. Pick your AirPods back up,
put them back in your ear because you're so crazed and wild by this.
This name. Okay, so we are Talking about the 1983 classic trading
places starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. The first of our five dadvent calendar
movies. And Nick, you picked Trading Places for us.
So talk to me, why'd you pick it? What's your story with it? Yeah,
well, I think you know, part of it is just the constant search for the
non official Christmas movie. Christmas movie. Right.
So you want to have so you know, for years. We know the one that
everyone says is a Christmas movie, Die Hard. But it's fun to just have
something like that's not the Grinch to watch all the
time, right? Yeah. Shout out to the Grinch. I love the Grinch. Which version?
How many versions of the Grinch have there Been over there. You know what,
I'm going to be non specific about that and say that they're all equal,
but I think you and I know exactly which one is good. Yeah, the Benedict
Cumber Grinch. Yeah, exactly. The newest one with the screaming goat. That's my favorite.
But. Yeah, but yeah. So it's one that has kind of picked up steam in
the last few years when we're always looking for stuff to watch around Christmas time.
But I've, you know, been watching this since I was a teen.
Yeah, it is very quotable. It's loaded with a lot of our favorite
people. Very early Eddie Murphy just,
you know, blowing everybody off the screen and he's like sharing the screen with these
other amazing performers. Yeah, just like super fun.
It's a very satisfying result and like,
it pokes fun at the right people and it just, it's funny. Like, it's still
very funny and. Yeah. How about you?
You've. You're familiar with this and I think this is not your first journey through
the Trading Places. Definitely not my first visit to 1980s Philadelphia,
for sure. Yeah. This is like really classic satire.
We've talked about satire before. Just as a form, as an art form, whatever.
And this is a great piece of satire. It punches up, which is always the
best comedy. Punches up. And you're right, the cast is sort of
like ridiculous before you add, fresh off of 48 hours, Eddie Murphy.
Right. If this was just Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee, Curt and Denholm Elliott and,
you know, Ralph Bellamy and Don Amechee and like that, you know, and then there
was just some of. It would still be a great movie. Yeah, Eddie Murphy makes
it a real classic. Right. Like, really. And so, yeah, I, you know, I probably
first saw this. Yeah. Sometime in high school, actually. No, that's not even true.
I'll bet you this is one of those ones I saw when I was like
10 or 11 on TBS, edited right. So that the swear words were all out
and you know, and the Jamie Lee Curtis scenes that we grow to love,
they're not there. But still a great movie. Same for me.
Because I do remember at some point where I saw this movie unedited and it
was like the Jamie Lee. I was like, are you kidding me? All this time,
like also this in addition to this movie I already liked.
Yeah, I think you're right. This was a classic on cable. Absolutely.
100%. So. So definitely saw that. And, and you know, like, yeah, the cast
is great. This is actually the third appearance, I believe on the podcast of one
Mr. Denholm Elliott. So super excited to see Denholm. Elliot, if you're listening.
Yeah, he's still alive, I don't think. He probably isn't. You can listen from beyond
the grave at some point. We are available on, on, on Heaven's Cast.
So you know, go, go ahead, Denholm. Listen there. Yeah, no, so yeah, because he
was in Toy Soldiers. He was in Indiana Jones and Last Crusade and now Trading
Places. And speaking of things like the cast of the movie,
let's get into the facts. Yeah, let's hear some facts about it. Trading Places came
out on June 7, 1983, which we were both surprised to learn that it did
not come out around Christmas or New Year's. Right. Which is obviously the, the focal
point temporarily of the story. But that's okay. It is rated
R with a running time of 116 minutes. It's directed by John Landis,
written by Timothy Harris and Herschel We Grod, starring among many others,
Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy and Jamie Lee Curtis. The scores rotten tomatoes 87%
fresh. That is a solidly fresh critic score on our on Rotten Tomatoes.
IMDb a 7.5, which is nice. Good, solid score. Siskel and
Ebert. Two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert. So there you go. Awards. It was
nominated for an Oscar for best music for the score did
not win. Denholm Elliott and Jamie Lee Curtis both won supporting
acting awards at the BAFTA Awards, which is the British Academy of Film
and Telev Television Arts. So basically like England's version of the Academy Awards.
So would they be selecting from the same pool? Generally it's just the,
it's like movies that are released but they'll, they'll have different categories for like foreign
and they'll treat things a little differently. And I do think that they are a
little more, you know, British focused. But.
Yeah, but they, those were the winners for supporting actor and supporting actress in 1984
with and JLC. And then Eddie Murphy
also won an award for this movie. He won an NAACP Image award for best
lead actor. He barely beat out Dan Aykroyd. I guess.
So we'll get into that. Oh boy, are we gonna get into that. Budget.
15 million dollar budget and the take at the box office, 90.4 million
for six times what it cost. A bona fide smash hit,
which really surprises no one. Obviously, you know, didn't cost a ton
to make even with the cast that we have. Sure. Not exactly a lot of
special effects, you know, etc. Good. Some good makeup and some really
Bad makeup. So we'll, you know. Right. But yeah, some good settings, but things
that already exist. Right. They needed to get good establishing shots of these
grand. Yeah. Places that they were in. Absolutely.
So, yeah, let's dive in, man. All right, let's dive in. Yes. So I
like that this movie gets right into it and. And I was actually really happy
to see it was nominated for best music because I love the music throughout this.
I am a big, like, classical music dummy.
Right. So I don't know the names of anything. So I'll hear
something and be like, is that like the score of this or is this some,
like, classic standard that I should know if I'd ever picked up a violin like
my parents wanted me to? So, like. Yeah, the way that this starts
off, the only way I can describe it as a non classical person is like,
this is like rich people music. This is kind of the music that would be
playing in fancy places or whatever. But it's not showing anything fancy at the
beginning. It's starting with, like, very kind of working class images of Philadelphia.
Things are run down. One shot that I
just absolutely love because I was trying to notice things more this time is
it's showing these various statues that are kind of like historical figure statues.
And they're all kind of like rundown looking, covered in bird shit. And then
the last statue it shows is a pristine Rocky statue,
which. So this is made probably filmed in 82, 83.
Right. Yeah. The Rocky statue couldn't have been more than a few years old.
And even nowadays people are like, this is stupid that this
is like the highlight of our city is this thing from a movie. Right.
They do have that bell with the crack in it. They've got that too.
So, yeah, Rocky punched the bell. But it's very funny
that I'm sure at the time people were even more like, oh, this historical,
like once capital of America and our biggest tourist
draw is this fucking Sylvester Stallone character. Right. So I thought it
was really funny for them to slide that in there. I completely agree. This is
one of my favorite, like, opening kind of montages in. In cinema,
to be honest with you. Like, I love it because I'm a bit of a
classical music nerd. I'll let you know. That is actually the Marriage of Figaro by
Mozart. I'm not sure. I don't know which Steve in my notes. I don't
know which symphony orchestra was performing, but that is the Marriage of Figaro, which is.
Yes. Sort of a. It's about. From an operetta about, yeah, like rich
people in the way that their lives work. And so the idea of juxtaposing that
with these images of working class Philadelphia is really great choice both by John Landis
and by the music supervisor on the film. Super awesome.
I do. I also wanted to say, like, on the question of whether
this was a Christmas movie, because I was kind of like, is this a Christmas.
You know, getting into it. There's a Christmas decoration in the first minute in that
intro. So it's like, clearly we are establishing that it is Christmas time at the
very least. And then I also was kind of like, noticing because,
like you, I've seen this movie a ton of times. And so watching through this
time, I really wanted to, like, try to be more. Yeah, like, vigilant and like,
look at things and really, like, understand stuff and kind of maybe like dig in
just even mentally as I'm watching it more than usual. And one of the things
I realized, like, this is a very similar opening to the film,
to the secret of my success, except instead of Butt
Rock, it's Mozart. Right, Right. Which was the butt rock of
his day. So I think. So that's actually pretty accurate. It was very popular music
at the time. So. Yeah. So, yeah. So we've got this whole working class
Philadelphia montage that happens. But it ends with us at the doorstep of one.
The home of one Lewis Winthorpe and his sort of butler,
valet, whatever, Coleman. And Coleman is making breakfast
and getting it all ready. And there's a lot of close up shots of like
getting the sil. The literal silver platter he's being served on, like, set up.
And then an opening that I really feel like John Landis deliberately references later
in Coming to America is providing the breakfast in bed to the sleeping prince.
Right, Right. Very much like Eddie Murphy is only woken
up and Coming to America by a string quartet. So it's a little more advanced,
but, like, the vibe is the same. He definitely elevates it in Coming
to America, episode 12 for anyone that wants. To check that out.
Great episode of 2001 movie. Look at you being a curator of our stuff.
Look at me being prepared, having notes and stuff. Yeah. And one
scene where Coleman, he's like. Of preparing the newspaper
for him to read. And then it cuts to a homeless man who's like,
you know, sleeping on the street covered in newspapers when Winthorpe
walks out to the vehicle. Because Winthorpe, you know, he's not like a kid,
but he's probably 30. He's supposed to be. Right. And when he
Walks out to his car. He just stands there with his briefcase, like, so indignantly,
you know, impatiently waiting for Coleman to open the door for him.
It's just like, these little touches that they add to show what a dipshit this
guy is are great. He can't shave himself. He can't pick out his own suit
to wear of a bunch of, like, very similar looking suits. Can't open his own
car door. Like, you know, I know obviously the character believes that,
that this is because he deserves to have these things done for him.
But, like, as a regular human being, not of abject wealth, I look
at that and going, damn, dude, you can't. You can't shave. Yeah, like, I shave
my head in the shower while I'm doing three other things. Like, you can't just,
like, run a razor over your face. Like, what are. Like, how incompetent are you?
You actually edit the podcast while you're. Shaving in the shower. In the shower with
the laptop. It's really, really spending a fortune on equipment. Really bad. We need some
waterproof stuff. Four MacBook Airs in the last six months. It's really crazy anyway,
but yeah, so he stands there by the car door until Coleman
comes down and opens it for him. And I love. There is like a Stanholm.
Elliot is so good in this movie. There's this little moment he first steps out
where he kind of takes a deep breath of fresh air and, like, gets his
gloves on and he looks, like, happy for a moment. And then he, like,
looks down and doesn't really change his visage too much, but there is a bit
of a downtroddenness to like, oh, yeah, that's right. I have to help this guy,
you know, so it's like he can still appreciate, like, a brisk winter morn,
you know, but. But he's got to help this fucking asshole. And the best part
of his day is before this asshole's awake and after. He goes to work.
Right, right. And. And then. So we're taken to
the Duke's mansion, who we learn are Randolph and Mortimer Duke.
And their kind of morning routine is even crazier. You know, they come
down this big, grand double staircase and they're handed their coats and they
walk out front and they have a whole staff of people. Good morning, Mr.
Duke. Good morning. And they're just acting, you know, annoyed that they have to be
to. Because they don't say back to them. No, it's an interesting juxtaposition.
Right before we see the Dukes, Randolph and Mortimer, we actually See Winthorpe arrive
at work, and so there's an interesting thing, if you notice. So he will respond
to the people saying, Good morning, Mr. Winthorpe. Good morning, Mr. WinthOrpe. But he doesn't
look at anybody. So he is looking down the hall, he's walking towards the elevator,
but as people walk by, go, Good morning, Ms. Winthor, he goes, good morning.
Yes, good morning, good morning. I mean, he doesn't sound too irritated, but he's obviously
also not interacting and he's not looking at anyone. Yeah. And then when you see
the Dukes, they not only don't look at their own household staff
as they're saying, Good morning, Mr. Duke, whatever, they don't respond. Right. So we've moved
from rich where Winthorpe exists to wealthy where the Dukes exist.
Yes. And there is even more just pure derision
for the working class at the Duke's level as there is for when
from Winthorpe. Right. And it's like we're setting the scene of, like, these are not
only rich and wealthy people, these are rich and wealthy. As if there
could be any other kind. When you get this wealthy, is there any other kind?
And they live in, like, a different world. Because in the Winthorpe scenes, it was
being cut between, like, working class Philadelphia, his house, because his.
His residence still exists kind of, you know, among people.
And then the Dukes, it wasn't cutting back and forth because they're like in their
own universe. They look like they live on a ranch somewhere outside of town.
It's enormous, like, country estate, you know,
so. So the Dukes, Randolph and Mortimer Duke, and then Winthorpe works
for them. And they're commodities brokers, right? They're their money. They're taking commissions
on commodities trades. And that's, you know, that's what they do. They advise people on
what to invest in and stuff. There's a scene. So I
think they're first not arriving at the office, they're at the Heritage Club is what
this place is. Well, so they're in the car first and. Because what happened is
Winthorpe, when he's getting shaved, he like, looks at the newspaper, he goes, I think
something interesting is going to happen in pork bellies this morning, whatever. And so then
when the Dukes are on their way to the Heritage Club, which of course it
says, founded on the liberty and justice for all. And then members only. Yes.
Which is a great little bit really good. On their way to the Heritage Club,
the Dukes are looking at, like, a stock ticker, commodities ticker,
with. Of pork bellies, among other things. And watching it Move. And like basically saying,
you know, Mortimer says, played by Don Amici, he says, like, oh, we should
sell now. And Randolph, played by Ralph Bellamy, is like, no, no, no. Like Winthorpe
said it would get to like 75, whatever the number was. And they're like arguing
and then, you know, finally, you know, Ralph is like, Ralph Bellamy.
I'm going to call him Ralph the whole time. Whatever. Randolph is like, you know,
let's wait, let's wait. So Randolph and Mortem are in the car, they sell when
Winthorpe said they could sell. And Randolph even calculates, oh, he saved us this much
money. They're super happy with him. Right. My question was, why is market closing?
It's the morning when they show up at the Heritage Club. The guy, you know,
working the door opens and says, good morning, Mr. Duke. Yeah, what market closes
that early? But I don't know that much about commodities markets, so maybe
that's a normal thing, but it seemed odd to me. I don't, I don't either.
I remember. I don't know if you did too, but I think freshman year
of high school economics. Yeah. They showed us this movie. Oh, interesting. Okay.
Yeah, so I remember watching this in school too. So extra points to it for
being one of those that qualified to be watched in school. I think we missed
the J. I. Was going to say, I think with a few. And the various
others. I mean, a few very important scenes and words throughout the movie cut out,
obviously. Yeah, yeah, so. So we kind of find out that like,
Winthorpe is making them a bunch of money on these trades and stuff. They get
to their. The Heritage Club and they're both like sitting in the chair and being
delivered like the most depressing looking, like milk. I'm sure
it has some kind of capsule dissolved in it or some kind of bullshit.
But by this butler who's just like, I can't stand these guys and they
hand him $5 for his Christmas bonus. From both of them? Yeah, from both of
them. And then he has a very funny line. He's like, oh, great, maybe I'll
go to the movies by myself. Thank you. I like that.
Yes, he's great. Now, something that I again didn't notice necessarily
the first 20 times I saw this movie, but definitely noticed this time. So I
was looking for this kind. Did you notice that every single person
that works at the Heritage Club, without fail and without exception, is black?
I was picked. I didn't. Had never noticed that before, but.
And this time I started noticing later in the movie. Okay, well, that's good to
confirm that. Yeah. Because these certain intentional choices throughout this movie
are. It is supposed to be clear to us that not only because of their
sort of interest in eugenics, which is what this whole thing is kind of based
off of, you know, the Dukes are. Are abject, just total and to the core,
racists. And their whole world is built around white supremacy and racism.
And so to have this, you know, club that only members who
clearly, by. By at least what we're able to see are 100 white men work,
you know, going somewhere where only black men work as servants, it's like, very deliberate
choice by totally Landis and the other filmmakers. And so. But it was interesting because
it was something I hadn't noticed before, and. And it kind of jumped out on
the screen, out of the screen at me this time. It's like, oh, my God,
look at that. It's, you know, it looks like an old plantation house. Like,
I'm assuming these guys are getting paid, but probably minimum wage. Right. I mean,
they're not treated. It's not a good job. Absolutely not. Whatever. Yep.
But, you know, at the beginning, we see the homelessness, we see the alternative
to not taking the shittiest job available to you. Yeah. So John Landis was definitely
showing some. And, you know, he has some racism to make up for later,
so he's trying to build some goodwill up. Yeah.
So, yeah. In the meantime, Winthorpe walks up,
up to the Dukes, basically. He's got a briefcase full of the payroll checks.
I don't know why your CFO is like, getting signatures on the payroll checks.
But then I was thinking, I've worked with people who are kind of like the
Dukes, who might need their fingers and everything, and they might be like, nobody spends
a penny without me signing it. Yeah, I definitely see that. Not setting a threshold,
but modern day. No, they're not looking at those payroll checks. Well, these. Who.
Nobody even gets paychecks anymore. Right. I mean, direct deposit and whatever, you know,
all that. But, yeah, these are. These are very big checks. I don't know if
it's the stubs on them, but for sort of. They look like half a sheet
of paper. They're enormous for some reason, I'm not sure why, but they have to
sign it. And I love. Mortimer's got a line about we seem to be paying
some of our employees an awful lot of money. And Winthorpe's like, no getting around
that. Minimum wage, Mortimer. Yeah. Oh, and it's like, who working in a. Who.
Even the secretaries working at a commodities Broker are making
minimum wage. Right. Maybe the janitors. Right, I can see that. But like, come on,
these, you know, Winthorpe's not making minimum wage. Like, come on, like what? It's ridiculous
and we'll probably bring it up again, but Ackroyd's voice in
this is just, it seems so, so natural that it's just
like, oh, this is a guy with a funny voice. Like the character he is
doing is so incredibly good. It's so perfect and it's so,
you know, he's a Canadian man who, you know, who. Who grew up
not rich but. But the way he takes on the affect of a clearly like,
you know, Connecticut born and educated, you know,
Harvard, whatever, kind of all the upper crustiness you could possibly be
and takes that voice on and does just a perfect job without it being overacting
or over the top. You know, it's not like in a movie, like Clueless.
The whole Valley girl thing is meant to be over the top. It's like,
you know, it's part of the character and part of the thing. This needed to
be realistic. Like this needed to be believable. And he nails it. Absolutely nails
it. And it even. It's great too because we get to see the transition of
it throughout the movie and by the end of the movie he, he doesn't have
the same affectations to his voice that he does early on and, and I think.
But yeah, at this point it is full, like, like very hoity toity. It is
whatever and it's perfection. It's. Yeah, it's really incredible. You can tell that Aykroyd
had guys in his real life like that. Right. That he couldn't stand.
Like that only comes from a place of like,
all right, I'm a very skilled impressionist, but also I know these
people and these are the mannerisms that are important to like capture who that is.
Well earned disdain. Y. Really good.
So one of the checks that he questions is like,
there's a $50,000 check to a guy named Clarence Beaks. I've never heard of
a guy named Clarence speaks. And they kind of, oh, well, don't worry about that.
We'll take care of it. Yeah, they hand wave it away. So, yeah. And now
Randolph and Mortimer are continuing this discussion they were having
about, you know, this article in Science Weekly or whatever the fuck he was reading.
And it was about, you know, environment versus genetics and
stuff. And they're having the nature versus nurture debate. They don't say nature versus Nurture.
I notice that that Would have made it cleaner, but I think that's how like,
poor people would talk about it, you know. Okay, that makes sense. No,
that. That tracks. That tracks. Very true. Yeah. So they're.
They're having this conversation, but when. Yeah, so they say, like, you know,
someone, like, we're very lucky. I think it's. Randolph says, we're very lucky to have
Winthorpe running our. Our. Our brokerage or whatever, running our firm. And. And Mortimer's like,
ah, it's ridiculous. He went to Exeter, he went to Harvard. Like, it's all,
you know, it's like, Like, I think he says it's like in racehorses. It's in
the blood, you know, whole thing. And they're arguing about whether it's like.
And, you know, he says, no, you could put, you know, Winthorpe anywhere.
Mortimer says, you could put Winthorpe anywhere and he'd succeed. And this is when Randolph
comes up the idea of, like, what if he. What if he'd lost, you know,
not just his job, but his fiance and his home, all of his
friends, and he was, you know, humiliated and thrown in jail, like. And he says,
I think he would take. I think Winthorpe would take to crime like a duck
to water or fish to water, whatever, he says. And so they agree. I think
we might be skipping ahead a little bit, but, like, they agree to that.
But before all that happens, we are introduced to Billy
Ray Valentine outside of the Heritage Club. We get a quick Billy Ray
Valentine's. We see. So this is Eddie Murphy's character. He is pretending to be
a legless Vietnam veteran. Legless and blind, I think. Vietnam veteran, yeah. And he
asks for money was when the Dukes first show up, actually. We see him and
he asks Mortimer for money, and I have no money for you. Whatever. And he
rolls off into the park and there's a couple of cops kind of
like watching him arrive. He hasn't seen them yet. He makes a comment about to
a lady who walks by, makes it clear he can see. So the cops roll
up to him and it's kind of like they stop his little cart and they
go, hey, we've been hearing a lot, you know, about somebody, con men pretending to
be crippled and blind or whatever. And they lift him up off the carton.
Of sure. Of course, he has his legs and so he puts his feet down.
I love the whole. Before he even references the legs, he's like, I can see.
I can see. It's a miracle I can see, you know, and he goes crazy.
Basically. He, like, walks away from the cops, and is like, oh, you guys,
it's a miracle. I'm okay now, whatever. And that's when he bumps into Winthorpe,
right? And there's a great chase scene there
because basically he bumps into Winthorpe, Winthorpe drops the briefcase that had all
the payroll checks in it, and Valentine picks it up. He's like, here you go.
And Winthorpe is another very funny trait about how terrified he
is, right? He just goes, help, help. You know, and he's like, take it.
Take my briefcase. And he's like, I'm trying to hand it back to you.
But he's just so terrified to even interact with a person of this,
like, strata of society. He says, please don't kill me,
I'm getting married. I love that for some reason.
So there's a chase. The cops and a couple other cops. Everybody kind of coalesces
on the Heritage Club, and they're chasing Valentine through
who still has the briefcase for a while because Winthorpe wouldn't take it back from
him. Running around with. So he does look like he's trying. Trying to take the
briefcase in that sense. Ends up kind of tossing it aside at one point,
throwing it to somebody. Ends up underneath the table, which I love. Winthorpe is then
going, there he is, get him. He's under the table. There he is. Don't let
him away. Go get him. And he's like, there's like the 30 cops, right?
Like, as if nobody can tell, or nobody. Not everybody knows he's under there,
right? So he sneaks out, you know, the classic shot of Eddie Murphy
and seven police, you know, pistols. Point his face, you know, is there a problem?
Offices, like. But, you know, they basically say, like, I was,
you know, he says, like, I wasn't trying to steal anything. This guy bumped into
me. And. And Ackroyd's like, well, that's ridiculous. I want to press full charges.
You tried to steal this whatever. No, I didn't. You know, just kind of arguing
and. And that's when. That's when Randolph is like, you know, you're from a
broken home, I suppose, you know. Yeah, we were broke. So what? You know.
But trying to, like, suss out what kind of environment you're the kind of.
Guy we're looking for to compare to Flip Flop. Yeah. And at which point he
says, man, I answering this guy's questions, I need a lawyer. Is there a lawyer
in the house? And all the. You got to figure 80% of the dudes in
there are. Probably have law degrees, right? Like, and they're all just like,
nobody will help. Yeah, that was a great. That was a great exchange there.
Oh, man. Yeah. So basically they say some racist things
about, about Valentine when he's taken away.
They say he's been stealing since he can crawl. Basically, like this is what he
was born to do. And.
And they decide we're gonna make a bet here. Yep. You know, can we basically
turn Winthorpe into Valentine if we give him that. Those surroundings,
learnings and vice versa. Right, exactly. And it's like, you know, there is
something interesting about the concept of nature and nurture of environment versus genetics.
Like, there are interesting things about that, but not in this way. Right.
Like, it's like, it's like way to take, like a potentially interesting thought process or
thought experiment and turning it into a horrific, you know, eugenic kind of like,
experiment that's going to ruin two people's lives. Like, they couldn't possibly take
this even any worse direction. Basically. Yeah, yeah. They're basically Eric And
Don Trump Jr. Like, in the future. And it is funny.
It's like, well, you're sitting on a pile of probably inherited wealth right here,
being like, oh, well, you know, was it my hard work? Come on, man.
What is it like being born on third and thinking you're the triple? Right.
Like, but, you know, you got to play with the pores if you're going to
entertain yourself. I think that's the, the lesson here. Lewis is
back home. That's right. And he's there with Penelope, his girlfriend is very pretty
fiance. And they're enjoying like, the most ridiculously
fancy dinner ever. Coleman is preparing things for him. Coleman gets
a phone call at some point. Well, yeah, so Coleman is making a dessert,
basically, and I don't know what it is. Crepe suzette. Is that what it is?
Okay, cool. Crepe suzette. And Penelope is super impressed with the, you know, the action
that Winthorpe went through today. And she kind of leans over and goes, I want
you, Louis now. You know, and so he's like, colman, take the dessert. You can
have it. He just dumps it out. I love that it cuts that hard cut
of like, oh, I'm doing you such a favor by saying, you can have my
dessert. And then Coleman just being like, this is your. This crap. Yeah.
And then that's when he gets the phone call. We don't hear the other side
of the call, but it clearly from the Dukes and. Because he basically says,
well, you know, it is your house. I work for you, sir. I'll make the
necessary arrangement. So they're setting up what's going to happen. He excuses
himself. Penelope and. And Lewis are in mid undress as Coleman says good night.
Basically, we cut then to the drug, basically the holding tank or the holding cell,
and at, you know, whatever. Whatever city jail Valentine
was taken to. And he is talking to about. There's about three guys next to
him, and he's saying stuff about how, like, you know, he was fighting, whatever,
and he cut. I didn't cut the guy with no knife. I cut him with
these. And he's like, showing his hands, like my karate man, like, whatever. All this
stuff. Beat up all five, six. Wasn't no cop, man. It was cops. Cops,
plural. Yeah, I love that. One thing I noticed this time, again,
I noticed this before. One of the three men, the one standing by the.
Against the cell, Giancarlo Esposito. That's right. Gus Spring from Breaking
Bad. I was like, holy crap. It's like he's like sixth or seventh credit total,
obviously, long before he was in do the Right Thing, which was kind of the
first thing I remember Giancarlo Esposito from. But yeah, like, that's. That's him.
Yeah. That was cool. It was cool spotting in there.
Yeah. And the. The karate thing, the Eddie Murphy line
where he says, like, they're like, well. And then the two. There's. So he's bragging
to these other guys, and there's two big guys who are like, hey, you're talking
all this shit. Why didn't this happen? Then there's one guy who just goes,
yeah, yeah. And. And he's like, well, I'm a karate man.
And we bruise on the inside. I love that line there.
So they've had enough of his shit, right? They're like. They don't want to
hear him run his mouth anymore. And they pick him up. He's like, what are
you doing? What are you doing? You trying to mess with me? Me, who's sitting
here in cell number 12 on the fifth floor, and he's like screaming for
the security. Good Eddie Murphy stuff. I mean, that was just like,
okay, this is why this guy's a star. And luckily for him, he's been bailed
out. So the guard, played by the same actor who played Jim Walsh, the dad
on 90210, comes over and is basically like, valentine,
you made bail you out here? And he goes, I did. Like, he's totally shocked,
right? Because he was talking about how he. The car, the phone in his limo
Is busted. So he can't get a hold of his because he told everybody's a
pimp. Right. But sure enough, he's been let out. He walks out the front steps
of the police station, whatever. Makes a funny crack about, like, you know, the couple
officers are wrestling with a guy that's trying to get sighting. May I suggest you
use your nightstick, officer? I love that. Yeah. And who rolls up but the
Dukes? And they're not, I guess, no surprise a black man is their driver.
So. Okay. But that's who rolls up in the car, and they basically tell him,
like, hey, come on in. We want to talk to you. We've got whiskey.
We've got. You know, the way he shakes the whiskey and says, it's like,
that's how I try to lure my cat into. The garage with treats. Yeah.
But it's really, really funny. Yeah. So he doesn't
want to get in, but he does end up agreeing because they're just like,
hey, like, we bailed you out, so you should at least come listen to us.
To one of the things that they say. They tell him that they are.
That they use or they're part of a program that, using private
funds, tries to help, and I quote, culturally disadvantaged people,
which is like, one of the most deeply racist things in
this movie. That, again, is. Is racist in the way Blazing Saddles is racist.
It is satire. It is making fun of the racists in the movie.
But to do that, it has to show us just how racist these people are.
And, oh, my God, using the words culturally disadvantaged was like,
Yeah. I don't know how else to put it. That was hope. That was pretty.
Pretty awful. But, yeah. But, yeah, that's where they're at, you know? You know,
it's fun at some point, talking about,
like, needing to be racist to show racism. My daughter watched this
movie and she was like, if an actor has to say the
N word, do they are they still. Can they still be a good person?
Right, Right. And I was, you know, trying to explain her. I was like,
yeah. I mean, but it's hard for people to say certain things. And like,
a lot of times you kind of break down, like, especially if you have to
be, like, a really terrible person as a character. Yeah. But it was
interesting coming from a kid's perspective, like, yeah, how does that even work? You know?
But then I guess, you know, you're respons responsibility as a performer to know what
you're in and know what the message of the. You know, are. You just saying
it because they just want something. Right, right. There's. There's reasons for
it to be part of the story anyway. A little diversion. But I think it's
important for, you know, kids to, like, think about stuff.
Absolutely. And I was actually, like, really impressed for her to ask me that.
That's good stuff. Yeah. So. So they basically are offering Buddy Valentine,
they're like, you know, cigars. And he grabs, like, the most cigars,
and he's like, clutching it to his chest, and they're like,
we're going to give you a job. $80,000 a year, which.
1982. Holy moly. Right. About a quarter million by the calculation
I saw. Yeah. Today's dollars. Yeah. And so very funny. He,
like, leans forward to the driver, which is, you know, what you have to do?
You're like, okay, this is the only other black person. This is the only other,
like, working class person here. I lean up. It's like these guys. For real?
Yeah. And the guy just kind of like shakes his head and nods at everything
he says. And then before he leans back, he's like, like, thanks, it was very
helpful. Yeah. Because he asked him, like, what's my move, man? And the guy just
shrugs like, yeah, okay, great, thank you. Like, but he asks him if they're gay
because he's. He's thinking, are they gonna. Are they trying to hit on me or
whatever? The guy's like, no, they're not. He's like, okay, all right. But, yeah,
so they get him to. Well, to Winthorp's house. Not. Not that Valentine knows it's
Winthorpe's house, but that's where we end up, because Winthorpe is at work. Right.
And so. So we get there and he gets like a. A tub, you know,
like a bath or whatever, with. With a Jacuzzi. He doesn't know what jacuzzi is
called. And. And Coleman's like, I think you'll like it. So. And sure, he.
Enough. He's like, hey, this is great, Bubbles. We went to Jacuzzi. We had
to fart in the tub when I was growing up. Yeah. And they get him,
you know, dressed in the outfit and everything, and they start to try to explain
to him. Like, oh, the tub real quick. Oh, yeah, yeah, the bathroom. Yeah.
Two things that absolutely gave me the damn creeps. Oh, black toilet.
Oh, that. That was like an 80s thing that I was always like, I don't
know. For some reason it doesn't mean that things don't show up on it.
It's like. It's like A black car. Like, it shows dirt much easier. And then
carpet throughout the. So you have this splish splash. I was taking a bath.
Jacuzzi tub right in the middle of the bathroom. And then carpet. And then the
toy. It's like, look, I know carpet's luxurious.
It feels good on your feet, but that shit's gonna get wet every single day.
That's disgusting. Yeah, so that was. It was funny looking at these old,
like, fancy residences, and there's certain things we're like, whoa,
that was, like, top of the line back then. This is a terrible idea.
Everybody needed it. It was the best height of luxury. Right? So. So Billy
Ray, he's, like, getting cleaned up. He's getting in his, you know, in his clothes
and everything, and they're kind of showing him around the place. And he still doesn't
buy it. No, no. He. He thinks it's either a setup or. Or they're just
going to say, just kidding and. And whatever. Or he's going to leave. Like,
he doesn't really get it yet. Yeah. So as. Very funny scene where he's
kind of trying to, like, get them to look in another direction, and he's stealing
little, like, knickknacks from around the place every. Oh, what's. Look at those curtains
over there. He's putting stuff in his pockets and they're like, you don't understand.
This is your stuff. You're only stealing from yourself. Right, right.
And then he's like. Starts playing around with a vase. He's like, okay, well,
if I just, like, play around, start doing Harlem Globetrotter. Yeah, yeah.
And he breaks it. And then they say, well, you know that we paid 35
grand for that, but we hadn't insured for 50 grand. You're already making us money
through insurance fraud. Yeah, of course, is the funny part. But, yes, that's.
That's just business to these guys. Exactly. Right. So he asks him, you want me
to break something else? And all three of them, including Denhel, Mel, it's like,
no, no, no, no, no, no. I do. I like those random things in
this movie where everyone's on the same page. Kind of cartoonish, almost like.
So. Yeah. So then. So now we're cutting to back
to the. No, back to the Heritage Club. And Winthorpe is arriving.
It seems like everybody in the club, like, gets together at some point during the
day. And Beaks. Clarence Beaks, who we haven't met yet, we've heard of. Right.
He is there, and he gets a signal from the Dukes about which
man, is. Is. Is Winthrop Thorpe. And he goes. They go into this big
meeting room and Beaks kind of bumps into Winthorpe and, oh, excuse me, but you
can see he kind of grabs, like, near his. His jacket pocket. And what we
find out is, okay, you know, the person says, like, the whoever,
this headmaster guy, whatever, this, like, head of the group is like, oh, there's something
rotten in the Heritage Club. There's been thievery for the first time in the 100
and whatever, you know, and it's an enormous room that has
almost nothing in it. Like the amount of empty carpet, like between the deus
and like the main table where apparently some classification of. Of member can
sit. And then along the wall are just chairs with a table is some other
lower, I assuming, classification of member. And Winthorpe and his buddies,
Todd and a few of the guys I think we've met already, you know,
we skipped it, but, like, you know, looking good. You're looking good, Todd. Or feeling.
Or looking good, Louis. Feeling good, Todd. Right. Thing. They're all sitting
at the big table, so they're like, special, I guess, But Beaks is this guy.
They introduce him as the head of, what, Windhurst Security, Lyndhurst Security, whatever.
And he says, we put, you know, we marked $50 bills
with red X's, and we put them in a coat in the cloak room.
And just a minute ago, they were stolen. One of our operatives witnessed the theft,
so. And he has them all, like, put a hand up on the shoulder of
the guy next to you and then reach into the other guy's pockets, right.
Empty his pockets out, something like that. Right. And sure enough, in front of Winthorpe
is this little folded up, like, three $50 bills with red X's on the side.
And he's like, I've never seen this before. I don't know what this is.
This is a setup, like, whatever, which is like, yeah, dude, like, he would be
shocked about it. Right, right. But, like, they literally take him away. And, you know,
a couple security guards who I'm assuming work for Lyndhurst Security because they're white,
so they don't work at the Heritage. Right, right. Take him away, basically. And everybody's
like, I, you know, even Randolph sits at me like, I'm glad your parents are
not alive to see this. It's crazy brutal, dude, for something that's like 150,
you know, but, you know, this is how much they crack down
on. On petty criminals and everything. One other thing about the room that they're in
is the entire wall is filled with these portrait
paintings of these, like, you know, white dudes, former members, whatever. But it's
really funny because it's like that style of portrait painting where from
a distance, they all look the same. Like, the color scheme, everything is.
Is very similar. So it just seemed like the most boring, like. Yes.
Stuffy room possible. Everything is monochromatic in every possible way,
for sure. A lot of Zorn palette up in there. Yes.
Yeah. So Winthorpe is taken away,
and he's basically getting. Now at the police station, they're going through
his stuff and he is indignant. He's Karen and out, Right. He's like.
At one point, he says to the cops, he's like, you are making a career
decision. I love threatening somebody to get fired
like that. That's really. Yeah, that's bold. Before we get to him
there, we do have beaks again. Show up and talk. Whisper in the ear of
a cop played by Frank Oz, the voice of Yoda. And so he. Kermit the
Frog. Kermit, that's right. And. And he whispers to him. And so this is.
This is kind of informing what's about to happen. Clearly, he's like, bribing the cop
to frame Winthorpe. Right. So they initially tell
Winthorpe, you know, strip down. You know, strip out of your clothes, like, whatever.
He's like, I'm not gonna do that. That's crazy. I get phone calls or whatever,
and the big. This big black cop gets up and goes, strip you little before
I tear you a new. And he just freaks out. This man is threatening
me. I have witnesses. Like, he doesn't get it. That, like, this is not.
Not the position you're in. And so they. They go through his
jacket and. And, you know, it's like he's got, like, gold watch. He's got,
like, you know, wallet with credit cards. And they list off every possible credit card
at the time. You know, two tickets to the Boheme.
It's La Boheme. It's an opera and opera.
Opera. And then one cellophane bag, and he's like, you know, puts.
It's got a white powder in it. I've never seen that before. He puts,
y. This is angel dust. Pcp. You ever see what this stuff does to kids?
And it's like, who would see, like, what? What? Like what? But they basically are
framing him for being a PCP dealer. Yeah. And he gets held.
Held in jail then. And that's a great scene, just seeing him crumble,
like, as a guy who's never really had to deal with his own consequence in
his life. There's always been someone to call to bail him out. Right. There's no
more Winston Wolf's left. He. He has to deal with it. So to be fair,
we also don't have any indication that Winthorpe's ever done anything that would require a
Winston Wolf, like, you know what I mean? Like that's. It seems like he has
been a boy. He's probably been a rule followers. He's a dick and he's rude
to people and he's entitled and, and, and smarmy and shitty, but we don't
get any indication that he's done anything illegal his entire life. Potentially. Yeah. And I
do love Frank Oz. I mean, in, in the other John Landis,
one of the great John Landis movies, the Blues Brothers, Frank Oz in a similar
role. He's the guy checking Jake Blues out of the prison and
giving the inventory of all of his stuff. So it's funny that he's like
Yoda, Kermit the Frog and the guy who, like, hands Jake Blues a used condom,
you know, know. And who pulls angel dust out of. Dan Aykroyd's jacket
and then catches Chevy Chase cheating on a government exam.
In Spies Like Us, he's the administrator of this exam and
he ends up seeing him cheating and he presses a button under the desk and
all these cameras come down and start aiming at Chase. It's a great movie.
We'll have to get to that one too. Anyway, Frank Oz is fantastic.
So, so he's, you know, Winthorpe is screwed. And then
I think this scene, this sequence is probably my
favorite in the movie where Billy Ray, now he's out, it's like
his first day of being a rich guy. He's like, fuck it,
whatever's gonna happen, I have cash, I have a limo, I have nice clothes.
Let's do it. I'm going out to the bar. And he goes to kind of
like the same shitty bar that he would normally go to. Absolutely right. He's not
going to a club downtown with Richie's. He's going back to the bar in his
neighborhood where he knows people. But he walks up to the bartender and the bartender's
like, you got a lot of nerve showing up after all this time. And he's
got money for him, so he even says, I'm your lousy, measly money. Here you
go, whatever, Champagne for everybody. Like, whatever. But who's there? In addition to
all the women now flocking him. Yeah, the Two big guys from the holding cell
the night before are there and they come up and are kind of like in
his face, you know. He told us you had a limousine. And I just love
the result. Hey, you're the motherfucker I saw in the tank last night. And he
goes, motherfucker, moi? And it's just. I love
that. So good. But basically, like you bragging on your limousine.
He's like, oh, that happens. Me in my limousine outside. And sure enough, there's Cole.
The guys go check. And there's Coleman, like, you know, tipping his hat, just kind
of waiting, whatever. Very funny scene. And he decides,
hey, let's bring everybody back to my place, have a party. I got a limo,
let's do it. Absolutely. And then it's just, you know, kind of a wild,
like, John Hughes house party style party. You know, everyone's dancing around
and it seems like a great time. I think there's probably some
professionals in the crowd. Seems like, you know, maybe there's some pimps and
some of their prostitutes around there, but they're all, all, you know,
laughing it up and having fun. Coleman is cruising around with a
tray of horse. And you get these like. He doesn't say anything, but you
get a little sense of Coleman. Like, you don't become a butler from being like
an aristocratic, like, British dude, Right. He's some kind
of working class. These are way more his people. He's probably like,
this party actually seems fun. All of Winthorpe's parties
suck. You know, it was the Zedekai singing guy.
Like all those Todd and the guys. Yeah. So you get
like some little cues from Coleman that I really enjoy
doing this sequence. Yeah. Denholm Elliott's performance in this has got a lot of nuance
and a lot of like, you know. So, yeah, so it's fantastic. So, yeah,
there's some great lines in it. You know, who's been putting out the cools on
my floor? You know, he's like. And whatever. And finally, you know, Coleman says,
oh, I think somebody retired upstairs, went upstairs, whatever. And he goes up and there's
a topless woman in his bed. Been waiting for you, Billy Rabe. It's like he's
done with it. He's like, everybody get out. You know, he tries to get all
their attention, right? He's like, can I get your attention? Can I get your attention?
There's a girl right before that. So he goes up and he sees the topless
woman in the bedroom. And there's during that scene, the woman who's like, like flat,
like pulling her top off and dancing and like doing this extended dance sequence.
Really good. I mean, hey, great early 80s style.
I wrote so much casual toplessness, pure 80s.
Like this really is pure 80s. But finally Billy Ray has to tell everybody to
get the fuck out. Like, get out of my house.
And there's another kind of sweet moment then between Coleman and Valentine where, you know,
Valentine, you know, Coleman says, oh, your friends seem to really enjoy the party.
Goes, those were my friends, man. Those are freeloaders. You know, they treated my house
like a zoo. And Coleman's like, you know, why don't you retire upstairs?
Like, I'll take care of this. And Valentine says, yeah, it's a good idea.
I think I will retire. Thank you, Coleman. And there's a reaction from Coleman when
he gets a thank you. Like nobody, dude, nobody has ever think. I mean that's
the thing, like watching this movie, you just know that the truth is nobody has
ever acknowledged Coleman as anything other than like, here's your $5 Christmas,
right? Yeah. So, yeah, yeah,
Very, very good. I'm glad you brought that up. So now we're back
to Winthorpe, okay? And Winthorpe is being bailed out of jail.
So his name is called there and he's got a black guy, he's wearing
different clothes, he's wearing like these, you know, ratty looking clothes.
And Penelope in the waiting room is,
she's really good. That whole scene is super funny. So Penelope,
proper Penelope is among, among genpung up, right?
Which probably never happens to her. So she's sitting on a bench, she has
one guy like picking his toes next to her. And then this
lady kind of like falling asleep on the other side with no room anywhere.
And then the like most like fire plug, like thickest dude
I've ever seen, shoves the sleeping lady aside and sits right down next to her.
This kind of like big barrel chested, polish looking dude. And he just looks at
her, he's like, like, is that your purse? It's a nice purse.
That's a nice purse. Before that. I love it though. The guy is picking his
toes or whatever. She, she's got like banaka in her purse and she
sprays him with the banaka, which is so classic. Cuz like
I remember having banaka like in high school, the 90s. Like I thought I was
cool because I would like have been, I don't know why, like it was a
thing a little while that people would use banaka as like a breath spray.
But like I would never like you can't spray it on someone. It's just that
little part of them that, where the Banaka hits will smell better. But it's not
like, like, it's not Febreze. No. At best you could use Banaka
as, like a low level pepper spray. Oh, my God. Yeah,
that. That's really funny. So he comes out and Winthorpe comes out.
Oh, Penelope, thank you so much. Oh, it's been terrible. And he goes to hug
her and she's just, like, embarrassed by him. She's mortified. She's like.
He's like, do you understand where I've been?
I love this man tried to have sex with me.
I love bean in, like, anytime anyone leans
into a bean, that always gets me. Yeah.
So he's. Penelope, reluctantly, is like, I'm gonna get
you out of here. You've embarrassed me. This is ridiculous. And as they're walking out
on the steps, the Jamie Lee Curtis character, who was just pulled aside by
Clarence Beaks, is, you know, bribing and stirring the pot everywhere, runs out up
to Lewis and kisses him like, oh, Louie, Louie, let me get a
shot, let me get a hit. You know, I'm not a drug dealer. I've not.
He's just finishing telling Penelope, I've never been a drug dealer. And then she comes
up and is all over him and Penelope storms off, right? And that
ruins it. And, and, and from the first moment we see her, obviously jam Lee
Curtis looks great in this movie. She's gorgeous. You know, basically,
Winthorpe is like, why did you do that? And she's like, oh, your friend told
me to get you off. He said you. The friend was funny. Look at that
guy over there. And of course, Beaks now has walked away. He's not there.
So Winkthorpe's totally. I don't understand. Basically they
agree, or she agrees to, like, pay for a cab for him to get him
home for 20 bucks or whatever. And then he'll. He said, I'll give you 50
when I get there. It's like my butler, I've got cash in the house.
Like, all this, whatever. Well, he. They get to his house and he knocks on
the door because his key's not working. He says, coleman, my key doesn't seem to
work. And literally, like, there's no Coleman here. You have the wrong house.
The coldest, really the coldest response possible. Like.
And then eventually, you know, he knocks, bangs on the door again. Call Bella or
whatever. It's like you. If you don't leave, I'll be forced to Call the police,
you know, and like. And that's it. So he's just like, fuck, what do I
do now? And. And it's kind of crazy that. That Winthorpe, like,
he's so ingrained in this world that he doesn't even fight this stuff too
hard because he's just kind of like, oh, okay, I am a piece of shit.
And this is what we do to people like that, you know, like, this is
what I would do to somebody in this situation. So he doesn't seem as much
like what is happening. Something's going to be wrong. He's just like,
damn it. Right? But then. Then the. The sort of final nail in the coffin
is struck when he tries to go to the bank to withdraw, he says $1,000
so he can give Ophelia what he owes her and then. And then have some
cash to, like, whatever. Do whatever he needs to do. And of course, you know,
the IRS has frozen your assets, there's an investigation going on,
embezzlement, like, all this, you know, Duke. And Duke and Duke are pressing charges.
And I need to see your credit cards. And the bank manager takes his credit
cards and like, shreds them or whatever. So he's got nothing. He's got no credit,
he's got no cash, he's got no anything. And he's finally. And then finally gets
thrown out by one of the security guards. And Ophelia's getting in
the cabin is like, I gotta go. Like, I can't deal with you. And he,
like, basically begs her to help her to help him. And, you know, kind of
for no good reason other than she is a good person, she agrees. She agrees
to help him. Yeah, she's way too nice. I mean, throughout this whole
thing, it's like, oh, my God, she is. Yeah,
yeah. Just wait. I mean, there has to be that character. Character in the movie,
right? Yeah, yeah, no, there's. The moral center of the movie is the prostitute.
Right. This is just yet another piece of the satire. Right. Is that the.
The sex worker, the sort of bottom of the barrel of society, is the kindest,
gentlest, and frankly, most responsible with money person in the
entire movie. Really? Yeah, as we later find out. But yeah.
So. So we cut, I think after they. After Ophelia agrees to help Louis and
they. And they, you know, get in the cab together. We cut now to back
to Valentine. He's gonna have his first day at work. Yeah. At Duke. And Duke,
they actually had spotted each other. Oh, that's right.
And Lewis were in the cab Driving away.
Valentine was in the cab with. With Coleman. He's like, hey, I think that that's
the guy. Dude that got me busted. Yeah, that's the guy that busted me.
And they're kind of pointing at each other. Driving away. Yeah. Now we have Valentine's
first day of work, right? And he asks Coleman, he's like, what do they want
from me? What do I do? He's like, just be yourself, sir. No matter what
happens, they can't take that from you. And, like, Valentine gives him a look like,
what are you talking about? So it's an interesting. You know, Coleman is also trying
to be. I mean, he's doing what he has to do because his employers are
demanding it of him, but he's trying to be the Jiminy Cricket of the story
and try to lead people in reasonable ways for the most part.
But so, basically, Valentine gets there and you'll notice when people are saying hello to
him. Hello, Mr. Valentine, good morning. He's saying, good morning. Hello. And, like, looking at
people, he's like, engaging eye contact. Right. It's very interesting. He gets up to the
sort of this main office. It's not Winthorpe's office, it must be the Duke's
brother, is their office. Because they have, I noticed, autographed black and white photos of
Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. Yep, yep. Because of course they do. In almost every
scene that it shows them, like, the. The photos change position so that they're
prominent. Yes, 100%. But they've got laid out a bunch of, like,
plates of, you know, like, I think it's like, an orange and, like a piece
of bacon and, like, coffee and, like, gold, like, whatever they're telling, like, what commodities
are. And I love when. When Randolph gets to the bacon or the pork bellies,
which make bacon, which you might find in a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich,
at which point Eddie Murphy, like, breaks the fourth wall, looking at us, the audience,
like, the fuck does this guy think? I know what fucking BLT is like?
You know what I mean? Such a great decision, because you can't. You can't do
that really, more than once in a movie to have it. Have that kind of
effect. And it's so funny there. Yes, yes. Yeah. So they're
kind of explaining and they say, well, the best part of it is, no matter
what happens, if it goes up or goes down, we make money. And. And Eddie
Murphy's like, oh, oh, you're the couple of bookies then, you know.
Just like I told you, Mortimer, he'd Understand, like,
they know that's what they are. And then I
think now we're back. Back to a few. Ophelia and Louis have arrived at Ophelia's
apartment, basically, which is in a bad part of town. She says hi to a
couple of, like, homeless guys on the street because she knows them based they're her
neighbors, even though they seem to live on the street based on standing by a
burning trash can fire. I assume those are homeless folks. You know, he's like,
do you know those people? She's like, yeah, dude. Like, this is the neighborhood.
Like, welcome, you know, kind of thing. And, you know,
she basically. He tries to argue about, like. Or complain about all this stuff,
and she's like, look, I don't care about any of that. Like. Like, you claim
that this is real. I. I'm gonna believe you because I'm gonna help you get
back on your feet, and you're gonna pay me five figures in cash. Not negotiable.
That's the deal. And he's like, okay, yeah, sure, you know, and she mentions,
like, she's got, like, 40 grand saved up. You know, she's got three more years
on her back and she should be able to retire. And he's like, you're a
prostitute. And it's like, bro, it was really. Funny, too,
because it says a lot about the Winthorpe character. She gives him
in that sequence, so much information, and the only thing he reacts
to is. Is you're a prostitute. Bingo. Bingo. That's all that matters in his world.
Yeah. And his view of people. This is, of course, also the first time we
get a shot of Jamie Lee Curtis's body, which is fantastic. But she
tells him, hey, in this place, rent and food are not the only things that
cost money. You'll sleep on the couch. Because I think he was thinking. He was
like, cool, I'll take the image of your titties that I just saw and take
it to the couch. I'm good for weeks. Yeah. So. But they
make their deal. He agrees, and that they're kind of set, right? That that's what
they're gonna do. She's gonna help him, and he's gonna pay her, and they'll make
it all good. And he's lucky as hell, basically, that he run in,
like, Clarence Peaks could not have done him a bigger favor than
introducing Ophelia to the picture and getting Penelope out of the way. Seriously, that's like,
absolutely the best possible thing could happen to Louis at this point. He could have
paid a dude to walk up to him outside the jail and be like,
hey, man, you owe me money from those drugs. You could have done all kinds
of stuff that would have. Whatever. So I. I think now
we're back with Valentine and the Dukes, briefly. And Valentine's kind of leaving this meeting,
and he knows. Notices a money clip on the phone. Oh, well, real quick,
though, we gotta talk about eating. Because he. They're talking about the price of pork
bellies again. Oh, yeah. And it's like, it's gonna go down, whatever. And he says
something just about like, I don't think that's a good idea. Valentine does. And they're
like, why would you. Why shouldn't we sell now? He's like, well, because it's gonna
keep going lower. Why do you think that's gonna. And he's basically like, all the
guys with the pork belly, you know, contracts. They're starting to get nervous. It's near
Christmas. I'm not gonna have enough money to buy my kid the GI Joe,
the Kung Fu grip. And my wife's not gonna want to. My wife's not gonna
make love to me because I ain't got no cash. I love how he correct
is. A couple times he corrects his language. Yeah, it's fantastic. And sure enough,
the price keeps dropping. Although they do say something about, like, you know, well done.
And they call in like, oh, Valentine has set the price, or whatever. But it's
like, you don't actually see it get as low as he says it will.
So it's kind of like, well, it's not done yet. But none of nothing makes
sense about how long markets are open or, like, trading's happening movies.
Let it go. Yeah, but you're right. As Mortimer and Randolph leave,
Mortimer, it turns out, drops a money clip on the floor, and Valentine sees
it and he. So again, right away, you know, part of the.
Part of the whole plan. And Mortimer keeps trying to slide these little challenges into
it. And so. And Valentine, he's like, no, I got
a good thing going. I'm not taking this. He goes down to return it.
I love when he hands it back to. I think
he hands it back to Randolph first, and then he gives it to Mortimer,
and it kind of like bats up in the air and, like, flips up and
he catches it. Yeah. Randolph tosses it to Mortimer. And I wrote down, like,
how many takes do you think that that took Don Amici? Or is it random
or was it intended? I'm wondering if. Yeah, it was like Ralph
Bellamy tosses it to Don Amici, who was supposed to just catch it sort of
meekly maybe, but it bounces and it just happened to work out
that way. And was that the first take? It would be so fun to fight.
I'm sure there's like a behind the scenes or director's commentary or something. Yeah.
Was it like the mask toss by Dr. Dan in Halloween 3, season of
the Witch? That was a fishing line and a reverse camera trick,
so I don't think it was that. Okay,
these guys now the Zeta Kai idiots. So Lewis,
he's gotta find somebody to help him. Well, my friends are all at the club,
so I can go there. And he's got. I. This is what I wrote down
is his friends, they're all sitting there in these like tennis
cardigans and stuff because. It'S like a rack. This isn't the Heritage Club, this is.
Like a racket club, something like that. And they're serenading the women
in this, you know, very irritating way. And they're very smugly
singing here. They're like a barbershop quartet of sexual
assault. Yeah. Like, they're just, just disgusting
looks on their faces because everything that they're singing about, like the song that they're
singing is basically about how each of the women there lost her virginity.
Right, exactly. And how often they were willing to get with
them. Yeah. Which is like, these guys are basically not unlikable enough
already. These guys were like the characters in Animal House that weren't the
like main fraternity. Like these, these are like the. Not the military, the bacon guys.
Like, these are like the dick head frat boys, like from that era. They're very
like 60s frat boys, it feels like. And I love. Before Lewis
comes in, after they do their singing and like whatever Lewis comes in, but before
he actually reaches them, one of the girls is like telling a story and all
we hear from her say is, and she stepped on the ball. And they
all laugh. And I, for some reason, that's always been the funniest lines to me
in the movie. Cuz that's another good like, dig at just like, I'm not
going to show you a whole story of how boring these are. This is their
punchline. This is what pieces of they are. Yeah. Really good.
And of course, you know, they don't want to help him. Now. Penelope is already
attached with like the most irritating of the barbershop quartet guys. Yes. The Tanner
who is always the most irritating of the barbershop quartet. And he's, he's telling
Winthorpe. He's like, you know, frankly, it shows extremely bad taste of you to even.
Show up here and embarrass us. That's embarrass us, like, right.
So everything is an assault on their image, you know? Yeah.
So. So his next resort is he's at a pawn shop talking
to the great Bo Diddley. Bo knows and,
and he's, you know, describing his watch and the guy's like, this is stolen.
I'll give you 50 bucks for it. So hot is bun in my fingers,
man. Yeah, But I love that he points out that it tells time in like,
you know, Tokyo, London, whatever, and Staad, which is like not even the largest city
in Switzerland. But maybe that's where the watch was made. I don't know. I thought
it was an interesting. Sounds very funny. I think they probably workshop like, it doesn't
burn. Doesn't sound as good. You know, like, try these different city names.
The way he said that it was like, all right, we got to build a
joke around Akroyd saying this. It really was perfect.
Yeah, yeah. So the pawn shop guy basically says like,
I give you 50 bucks. Like here. He's like, okay, fine, give me the
50 bucks. And then. Very funny. Right as he's about to be handed the money,
he's like, oh, how much for that gun? Bo Diddley's look like response to
that is so good. Eyes wide like, like,
oh my God. So now, now. Oh, this is great too. So now we cut
to. It's raining outside and we're having dinner and it's the Dukes and it's Valentine
and then it's a handful of other people, most of whom we haven't seen yet,
but I think we'll see again later in the movie. And one of them is
guy they refer to as judge. I don't know what, you know, he's a judge,
but he has the most ridiculous facial hair ever. It's like a crazy. A beard
that only goes to the neck and chin and then a mustache. Yeah, Very weird
looking thing. But he's telling a joke. Honestly, one of the better jokes
in the movie that are like just told as jokes where he's talking about like,
you know, the snail goes to the car salesman, wants to get a big S
painted on his car. I'm a big S on every door and on top a
big S. Why would you want that? Well, you see, when I drive my car
down the avenue, I want everyone to look and say, look at that escargot.
And they all laugh. And it's actually A pretty decent joke if you know the
French word escargot. And, like, what, you know, totally still and everything. So it's pretty
funny. But they all bust up, up. And. And then it's like, this is like.
I don't know how much time has passed is. Is an issue, right? I do
think Lou's black eye is healed, so it's not like the next day, right.
But like some. The judge, I. So Valentine, I'm thinking, going long on April wheat,
what do you think? You know, this would be like a wheat contract due in
April, right? And. And he goes, here's. And then everybody in the restaurant stops to
listen because now, Valentine's. There's a few reasons why I don't think you should do
that, Judge. And then everybody goes back to things. So it's like. But I'm like,
why would anybody give a crap what this guy thinks? Thinks how much
time. We know how much time has passed because we're still. It's still not to
Christmas yet. But if the Dukes are behind someone, they might be
like, the Dukes are always on to some. So if they're even making this guy
public, they've known about him for months. And he's already made them. And frankly,
you're telling me the Duke brothers have a black man running their firm? He must
be a super genius, right? Because they're such racists. Right. They would never.
Right. Allow that for just a run of the mill smart guy,
you know, a literal oracle who can see the future kind of thing because they're
such racist assholes. So. So during this whole dinner scene,
and I love the music again, this is. I don't know what the name of
the piece is, but it's the same as in the French restaurant in the Blues
Brothers that's playing. So while this fancy dinner is happening in the restaurant,
Winthorpe is outside in the pouring rain a la
Rick Moranis and Ghostbusters. Kind of of like standing out there just watching
the dinner happen, getting poured on in his, like, fur pimp coat and all this
stuff. I will say, a coat like that today is going to run you 950
bucks. Because it was real fur, you know, that was real. 100%. Yeah, yeah.
So. So Winthorpe is sick now because he's been out
in the rain all night plotting his revenge through a restaurant window.
And you know what? A real fancy restaurant, people can't
look at you from the street. You go by the French Laundry. Good luck getting
a peep into that. The windows are up high and they're small. They're just enough
to let light in. Not so much, you know, visage to the outside world.
Yeah, so. So he's sick now. And Ophelia, once again,
outside of her contract, she is, like, taking such
good care of him. She's being super nice to him. She's, you know,
okay, you rest up, you take care of yourself. You're no good to me if
you're. Yeah, whatever. And protecting her investment. Yes, that's what she says. But. But it's
more than that. It really is. Especially when she then has her john show up
for his date date and has to. And she tells him, oh, my mama just
came into town, can we do it next week? Because it's like she doesn't want
to kick Lewis out of the bed. And even she comes back and he's getting
up, he's like, you've got work to do. This is business. I'll leave, like,
whatever. And she says, like, no, you're crazy. And she takes her clothes off and
gets into bed with them. Like, and she's just sort of like petting his head.
I don't think it's anything overtly sexual at this point, but, like, clearly she's got
feelings. She's catching feelings for him. Sure, sure. And maybe that's
all part of the plan to bill him later. You know, if you're at a
restaurant, like, oh, run a. To a kid. Do you want a refill on that
mocktail? Yeah, I do. And they charge you 1350 for it.
Okay, so Winthorpe, he sees a newspaper, like, one of
the things. She hands him the newspaper and there's an article about Valentine, says something
about. You know, the new manager of Duke and Duke, Whatever. Yeah. And then it
says something about Christmas because he. He goes, christmas, huh?
I'll give him a Christmas he'll never forget. It's very Christmas
present he'll never forget. Very snidely Whiplash. Very, like, cartoonish villain,
like, tie in a. Into a train track style. For sure.
Oh, my God. So then we cut to Duke and Duke to the Christmas party
in the office. It's sort of that. It's not the bottom floor. It's that main
floor after the elevator where you get on. And then there's the offices and stuff
where everybody said good morning and all that. Yep. And. And they're having this big
Christmas party. There's big, big spread laid out. And Winthorpe is there.
We see him right away. You know, it's not super clear to everyone around him
who he is, but we Realize who he is. And he's wearing the dirtiest,
just gnarliest Santa suit. So gross. I don't know where it
came from, but it looks like he found it in a dumpster down an alley
somewhere, right? And. And that's what he's wearing. And so we cut real quickly
to. Valentine is in his office finishing up work, looking through payroll again.
So it must be a couple weeks later, right? Another. Another paycheck is due to
everybody. And he sees instead of $50,000 to Clarence Speaks,
10,000 to Clarence Peaks, and it's like. And goes to ask Randolph and Mortimer about
it. And, you know, of course, Mortimer has to make a crack about, you know,
we did run this place successfully for 40. Whatever years before you came. Or,
you know, Valentine whatever. Like, okay, so. So after.
So Valentine leaves his office, at which point Louis,
who had been just taking stuff off of the buffet table, just large amounts of
food, shoving it in the pockets and shoving the entire smoked salmon down the
shirt of his Santa suit, sneaks into Valentine's office,
his old office, and starts loading up his center drawer of his desk with
pills and joints and all this kind of stuff. It's like the whole
board that the DARE Officer brings to the school all in one thing, and he
dumps it down, down there. One thing I will ask you.
How quickly would you quit a job if they had the office Christmas
party at the office on Christmas Eve and you had to go,
yeah, is terrible. I know. It's like a movie thing. It's just like
the bachelor party is always the night before the wedding because it makes for a
better movie. But, yeah, I hate this shit. I've never had a Christmas
party on Christmas Eve at any company I've ever worked at. I've never had a
Christmas party at the office at any company I've worked at. At one time,
I got a Christmas party was pretty awesome. I worked for a sports website,
and our Christmas party was in the Giants clubhouse at Oracle Park.
It was at and T Park at the time, right after they won, I think
the 2012 maybe or 2010 World Series.
And so we got to, like, hang out with the World Series trophy and,
like, in the whole thing and go take bat. I took out to BP in
their batting cages. That was a cool Christmas party. That's a Christmas party, dude.
That beats, like, sitting at your own desk right? On Christmas Eve while your
family's at home. I didn't see any plus ones. No, just employees and, like,
as if the Duke. I mean, the Duke. The Dukes are Ebenezer Scrooge. Right.
If Ebenezer Scrooge allowed for a Christmas party, it would absolutely only be for Bob
Cratchit. Tiny Tim can go to hell. Yeah. Yeah.
Valentine walks in on him doing this. Yes. And he's like,
we gotta deal with this, man. I'm gonna call security. And he's like, hello,
security. And then Winthorpe pulls out a gun and points it at me, goes,
merry Christmas. And then hangs once again. Again, one of, like, the five lines in
this movie where it's like Eddie Murphy's the only guy who can capture it that
efficiently and. And get a laugh on, like, just such a normal line.
There's so many. There's so few people. I kept trying to think of anybody else.
I think that that pulls off that kind of switch between one mentality
to another when it is forced upon them by another actor. Like, it's that reaction
to the other actor and that. It's just very interesting. And there's not a lot
of actors that do that, especially. Especially in comedies. And Eddie Murphy's. Fantastic. Before they
get to that part where Winthorpe's actually pulled the gun, though, the. The Dukes kind
of let slip a little bit about the wager. Not enough to give anything away,
but enough to get Valentine's attention, where they say something about. Or maybe it's after.
But they say something about, you know, there was another party
had to turn to crime or whatever it was. When I would think it was
when Valentine was telling them about the payroll thing, it's like, oh, look,
Valentine's working still. You know, it's like, oh, the wager's not done yet. You know,
another party had to turn to crime, like that kind of. So Valentine's now suspicious
of them. But basically, after he pulls the gun,
Winthorpe is like, you know, just wants to get out, but he's sort of like,
waving the gun at everybody. He doesn't shoot anybody, whatever, but he's threatening everyone.
And I think we talked a lot last week in. Or not last week,
a few weeks ago in Raising Arizona about man screaming. And this
is some fantastic man screamer, Dan Aykroyd, as. He just starts yelling as he's running
through the thing, jumps up on a desk and, like, waves the gun and everybody
drops, you know, and he's just kind of like, yeah, I'm a big man.
And he hops down, grabs a bottle of liquor and heads out the door.
Well, yeah, out into the stairwell of the building, because they're on, like, the 60th
floor. I guess, because he. He walks. He ends up walking downstairs and
by the time he gets to the bottom, he is absolutely blotto shit. Like,
most I know. And he started off, like, pretty drunk.
So. So Valentine is talking to the Dukes after
this, and his Valentine's kind of like getting. Get these drugs out of my desk.
He puts a J in his pocket. Yes. But he's telling the Dukes.
He's like. Like, you got to go hard on this. Like, you can't go easy
on people like this. Trust me, I know. You know, and he sneaks into the
bathroom to smoke it. And while he's doing that, the Dukes come in and they,
you know, he jumps up on the toilet seat mainly to not get caught smoking
weed. Yeah, Right. And then he ends up listening in on their conversation.
Right. And they basically settle the bet. Like. Like Valentine is a hard working,
upstanding member of society and making them money. Right. Which is
the most important thing to them that Winthorpe did. Now Winthorpe has turned to trying
to frame someone carrying drugs around. He's got a gun, he's waving at people.
You know, he's broken several laws right in front of their face. That's crime.
So they're like, yeah, we're done. Like, basically, Mortimer owes Randolph a
dollar. That's what the whole bet was for. They ruined two lives for a single
dollar. Because again, it's not about. That part's not about money to these guys.
Guys. It's just about being right or wrong. Right. You know, the actual wager part.
And especially if. If everything they own is kind of 50. 50?
Yeah. You know, if you have the extra dollar, then it's like.
Even if it's not exactly. But symbolically, it's like, I'm one up
on you. Exactly. Right. That dollar is mine. Right? Yeah. And of course,
they then talk about, well, how do we get everything back? And Randall's like,
what do we do to get. You know, I think we should wait to get
Winthorpe back until after the crop report comes out, which is what Beaks is helping
them with. And Mortimer's like, I don't want Winthorpe back after what he did.
And then Ram's like, you think you want. So you're saying we should keep Valentine.
And this is when Don Amici hits the hard R. Edward,
you think I want a one of those running our family firm? Neither would
I. So, yeah, you know, they're basically making it clear that they're gonna return Valentine
to the ghetto. They do still say something about, you know, waiting to Switch them
back. But it doesn't sound like they're gonna help Winthorpe. You know, they're gonna just.
That's it, it's done. And they're gonna. Everyone's just replacing sensible.
Exactly. So basically, now we see Winthorpe is heading down the stairs, like I said,
from the office. He's drunk, he's, like, drinking this bottle. Valentine, who has now heard
all this, is leaving, trying to find Winthrop. He wants to talk to him.
Right. Well, he gets down on the elevator and sees Winthorpe coming down the stairs
at the other end of the lobby. And he's blottoing Winthorpe. You know, and I
love Ackroyd's reaction, just goes.
Oh, my God. He heads out to. Into the street. Valentine follows him.
You know, mistakenly sees another guy, dresses Santa and tries to get his attention.
Not him, rips his mustache off. That poor guy with the spirit
gum tape. That's gonna hurt. And there's an interesting shot because, like, right as he.
So he turns around, the guy that he rips the beard off, and then as
that guy turns back around, it shows another Santa who's standing at the same
angle, but it's Winthorpe. And he gets on the bus, and Winthorpe
on the bus now. I mean, he's basically the Polish guy at the booking stage,
like, moving people over, and he's eating. He has this,
like, big rack of smoked salmon. Yeah. And he's just chomping
on it through his beard with, like, gross, dirty beard hairs.
I know it's not human hair, but. No. Eating the smoke sand through
the dirty Santa beard is one of the grossest things I've ever seen in cinema
history. And I have seen the movie Human Centipede,
and this is still, like, right up there. This is human canopy.
It. Oh, God, it's just gross. Like, I'm not a germaphobe in general, but this
grosses me out. So for every time he pulls that salmon up through his
beard and has to, like, pull the hair of the beard away from the meat
of the fish, it's. Oh, it's so nasty. It's.
Yeah. So effective. So effective.
This is. You want to see rock bottom. Like, that is rock, rock bottom.
Right. Like, we are. That is abundantly clear to us how. Far down he's fallen.
And, you know, we see him eat a bit earlier when they're having their proper
lobster dinner, when he's with Penelope and stuff. So, like, how far he's.
He's fallen here. Yeah. Really, really funny. Yeah.
So let's see and the. Now Lewis
steps off the bus, basically pulls the gun out of his pocket, puts us to
his head, pulls the trigger, doesn't fire right. And then he
gets this look like, I'm such a loser, I can't even kill myself. Himself throws
the gun off screen, and then you hear like. Like, it shoots off the second
it hits the ground, which is just a really great gag. And before he goes
to shoot himself or try to write, a dog pees on his foot. And then
the rain starts pouring again. So it's like every possible thing is happening
and he can't even end it right or whatever.
And so he goes upstairs because he's at Ophelia's apartment. Basically, he goes
upstairs. You know, Valentine got in a cab to follow the bus, so he
follows him home. Louie goes upstairs. Louie Winthorpe goes upstairs and,
like, goes into the bathroom and. And. And Jamie Lee Curtis doesn't actually see him.
Ophelia doesn't see him when he comes in. She's putting tinsel on the tree or
whatever. And then Valentine shows up and it's like, excuse me, the door was open.
I'm looking for Mr. Winthorpe. Is he here? You know, by the way, best approach
to, like, an open door. I was like, hey, hey. He's learned a
lot, you know, and. She is kind of like, give me a minute. And then
she's, like, knocking the door like, louie, it's him. It's Valentine. Oh, my God,
Lou. Whatever. No response. So then Valentine busts the door down and.
And then they see Winthorpe is in the bathtub. He's climbed in there and he's.
A bunch of pills have dropped, but he's taken, obviously, a ton of whatever it
was. We don't even know what Quaaludes or something that he's got.
So we cut to back to, I guess, Valentine's house
now. It's not Winthorpe's house now. Valentine's house and Coleman and the bed.
And there's a doctor there who I recognize from the Money Pit. I don't know
if you ever saw that, but he plays Curly, the foreman of the construction company
in the Money Pit. I was like, this guy's great actor, but he's there and
he's like, oh, it's close, but he'll be okay. You know, just no excitement.
Yeah, like. And that's. He really stressed. No excitement, no excitement.
And, you know, I think the way Ophelia so cheerily
says Merry Christmas to the doctor when he leaves is another just small bit
that tells you so much about the character. She is, like, the Ophelia
character is, like, the sweetest. Like,
first of all, she's gorgeous, but she's, like, kind of,
like, simple in her needs. Like, if you're nice to her and she can be
nice to you, it's like, that's all she needs in life. Yeah. It's just being
kind and everybody's be kind to you. And there's just something about that is,
like, so pure and, like, nice. And then in the rest of the world that
Winthorpe's in, everybody is so not that. Right. Where kindness
doesn't even matter. Right. Like, it's not even a part of the equation. Brown nosing
is the closest to get to that. Right. Subservience is the closest. Closest you get
to that. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So basically,
Winthorpe, his eyes open and he's looking around there,
he's like, oh, my God, I had the most terrible dream. Like, I'm glad I'm
in my bed. Coleman, I'm glad you're here. Oh, there's this most horrible.
And then he basically sees Eddie Murphy. Right, Right. Sees Valentine
and just blasts up and starts choking him out, which is really funny,
where he's choking him and Valentine saying, it was the Dukes.
It was the Dukes. And Ophelia and Coleman pull, you know, Louis off,
because obviously Coleman knows the whole story. And so now that it's open, he's like,
yes, sir. Like, I'm so sorry, but this is true. Like, whatever. And Ophelia's like,
I believe them, like, whatever. And he says, it was a bet, man. Like Valentine's.
They bet on him if they could switch us and it would work out.
And it was like, how much did they wager? Like, how much for a dollar
one? Like, the way he says that is, like, so great.
So now we cut to him, he's all, like, gotten out of bed, he's dressed,
whatever. In fact, he's wearing a vest and, like, a belt full of shotgun shells
and. And cleaning his shotgun. He's got the ramrod and everything. And Valentine's like,
man, you can't just go shoot somebody's kneecaps off because you don't like them.
He goes, why not? And they suggest, hey, I think the
best way to. To, you know, hurt rich people is make them poor. And Coleman
says, you didn't like him much yourself, you know? And that's when Clarence Beak shows
up on the news, on tv, and Ophelia is the first one to notice it
and goes like, louie, that's the guy that paid me to kiss you. Like.
Like, that's the guy. And then they both. And then they hear the on the
news thing. It's like, you know, linder Security, you know,
Clarence Beaks. Like, for whatever reason, they mention his name and both Valentine
win. They're like, clarence Peaks, you know, and it's like. And they. It's all coming
together. They're realizing it, and they realize what's happening. He's got the crop report.
The Dukes are going to try to corner the frozen concentrated orange juice market.
And Ophelia goes, like, you know, well, not if we stop them.
And then Denhold, like, holy. And goes. Or beat them to it.
And he's holding a platter of. Yeah, eggnog. He's still
serving the eggnog. He's so good. And. And again, like, as.
As someone watching this movie, it's so satisfying now that
Ophelia and Coleman and Valentine and Lewis are like,
all together in that. The Fantastic Four. Like, it really is. This group is
so much fun. It's all the best people in the movie. Yeah, well,
I mean, Louis Vuitton being forced to learn how to be a good person a
lot of ways, but like, Lewis, now this Lewis, the post, sort of Ophelia
Lewis really has become a better person. And. And they're much easier to root for.
And it's a great group to kind of like, oh, yeah, let's go take down
Beaks and the Dukes. Yeah, because they're awful. Like, Beaks, like, shoves people to the
ground and is on the phone and is just like, hey, fuck off. Like,
he's just an absolute. There's, like, extra stuff that they have. Him do to
make sure he's awful. Yeah, for sure.
So now Beaks is taking this train now, and it looks
like it's from Baltimore to Philly. There's a sign on there about the group that's
holding this New Year's Eve costume party on a train from Baltimore to Philly because
Beaks had to be. In D.C. to get the crop perform from the Department of
Agriculture. So now he has to head to Philly to give it to the Dukes,
basically. So I love the Jim Belushi
role in this. It's so funny. I only love it if he's doing it to
make fun of that type of guy rather than to show how cool that type
of guy guy is. Because with Jim Belushi, I'm not sure where he actually falls
on that spectrum. But because with his brother, it would have been clear that it
was. That it was saturation. Yeah, yeah. But Jim Belushi in the. He's in this
ape costume and he's being extremely creepy with this woman at the
bar who is, like, kind of enjoying his a
little. Like, she's amused by him. She knows. Whatever. Seems like he's just kind of
like, oh, come on. You ever make it with an ape just being a.
Just being a dork. But a New Year's Eve train ride costume party is so
much better than a Christmas Eve office party, right? Absolutely. Like,
I mean, I've never done a New Year's Eve costume party. Like, I had to
remind myself watching this. This isn't Halloween. Yeah. It really looks like a great
idea. They're like elaborate costumes. But, yeah. The idea of, like, a train party where,
you know, if the idea is, like, the train rides maybe an hour long or
less. Right. And you're going to get to wherever you're going. Like, it seems like
maybe if they're heading from Baltimore to Philadelphia. I don't know if the idea is
they eventually go to New York or is Philadelphia a hotspot of. You know,
it's not Times Square. Right. We know that's like a central location for New Year's
Eve. Or is it more just meant to be like, are you on the train
at midnight? I don't fully understand. Yeah. But it does seem like a fun.
A fun thing to do, for sure. Good time. No one's driving, right?
Exactly. That's always good. Yeah. So. So Beaks now is in this car,
the train, which has a couple, you know, benches facing each other so
it can seat, like four or five people. And he gets in there with his
briefcase. And then we're starting to be joined by our crew here.
Beef Chucky time. So, buddy,
what is. What is Valentine's fake character name? He comes in basically
as like, an African exchange. Such an exchange from Cameroon. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
Great team to play on that NES soccer game, by the way. Hell of
a team. Well, the World cup team in, like, in like, 86 or whatever.
Cameroon was actually really good, like, surprisingly. Or 84, whatever it was.
So. So his character is really funny. Right. So he has, you know, the dashiki
on and stuff. And. And then he has this silly, like, little fan
that he's flipping around or. Like a fly swatting thing. Yeah.
And then who comes in next? Coleman. And he's dressed as,
like, an Irish. He's got more of an Irish accent he's put on himself.
He's dressed like A priest. He's got a little flask of whiskey and, you know,
it's like, I interest either of you in a jolt of Irish whiskey,
you know, whatever. And, and, and I love Eddie Murphy. Like, offers him. He's like,
want some beef, Jackie? And he goes, oh, no, son, thank you. It gives me
the wind something terrible. I love those lines to each other.
That something else that Eddie Murphy says something to Beaks and he's
like, merry New Year. It's Happy New Year's. Like,
thank you for correcting my English, which stinks.
So then, so then we have Ophelia come in and she's like,
you know, dressed in a, like a germ, like a leaderhosen looking
thing, but she's saying that she's Swedish. Yeah. And Coleman's
like, but you're wearing lederhosen, like you're from Austria, right?
She's like, no, yeah, I'm. I don't know. Her name is from
Sweden. It's like, it's the only voice she could do. Maybe, you know, the character
doesn't have a lot of accents she knew how to do, but yeah. So she
asks Beaks to help her with her rucksack, like her backpack, whatever.
And when he goes to. To put it up, Eddie Murphy's able to like,
switch his briefcase with the one that Beaks has and kind of hide it under
his. Under the dashiki. So now he's got the real briefcase with the real crop
report in it. He excuses himself from the car, goes down to the bathroom,
knocks on the door a few times and, like, obviously Lewis is inside. He knocks
back and it's like, man, open the door. Like, they didn't figure out the plan.
Hands him the briefcase and then he hands it back. Or no, no, then,
then he goes back to the, to the room. Then the next thing that happens
is we have Dan Aykroyd show up. Now he's in blackface and playing a Jamaican
person who knows Eddie Murphy's character, this Cameroonian
exchange student, because they met at some conference. Right. Is what they say. Right.
I want to ask your opinion. Yeah. Is this Dan Aykroyd
in blackface or is this Lewis Winthorpe in blackface?
I bet Dan Aykroyd would say it was Lewis Winthorpe. I think that's
accurate because Dan Aykroyd is not playing a black character. Actually, you know,
know, it's an idea that Lewis Winthorpe would have if he had
to put a costume on. 100%, absolutely. But I will say he does
a good Patois. Yes, he does. You know, he's no Chet Hanks,
but, you know, he's okay. I. I love the name of his character.
Lionel Joseph. Lionel Joseph. Just what is such a fun name
to say? But yeah, I mean, you know, blackface is. It's not holding up well,
but it is definitely something that Lewis Winthorpe would decide to do.
Beaks would clock Winthorpe immediately. No matter what he's dressed as,
he would recognize him immediately without something kind of covering his face. Now getting.
Now it's a costume party. Maybe they didn't know that before they were coming,
but he could have worn a costume. Costume, potentially. That is true. But I do
think this is not. I, in my opinion. And look, I am a white man,
so my opinion is just a minor part of it. Not final in any
way, but it feels more like this is not Ackroyd wearing blackface because the character
he's playing is a white man, but that character is
in blackface for another purpose. That's the way I take it. Don't know if that's
accepted. I'm glad, I'm glad we brought this up because I forgot that I had
screen capped a bit of an interview from Dan Aykroyd about this exact thing
here. So, okay, this is what he said first because he's kind
of like distancing himself basically. Like, I wouldn't have done this. Yeah, yeah. He says,
Eddie and I were improvising there. Eddie's a black man and his
entourage were all black people. And I don't think they batted it eye. There was
no objection then. Nobody said anything. It was just a good comic beat
that was truthful to the story, which, like, I get that, but he's also a
comedian and he's gonna have a different standard for the kind of shit that he
wants to see. But this is the thing that killed me. The actor continued.
In these days, we're living in all that's out the window.
I'd be hard pressed to do an English accent and get away with it.
Oh, my God. They'd say, oh, you're not English. You can't do it.
Dan. Missing the point, dude. No,
no. Like you're doing the. Well, what's next? You can marry your cat?
Like, shut the up. Why is there no white history thing. That we're
talking about? So I will say, I don't think you should do blackface.
I think there's a different reason why you shouldn't do blackface than why you should
be able to do an English accent. So poor Dan Aykroyd
wasn't in Downton Abbey because he was afraid of being canceled by the Woke Mobile
job. Right, Right, Yes. Remember earlier we
were talking about punching up? Yeah, that's the opposite of that. Apparently he's a 70
year old guy that has a company that makes vodka that comes inside little skull
bottles and he does like alien shows on the History Channel. He's not my.
Did you see the John Candy documentary? I didn't watch that. You gotta watch it.
Ackroyd is wearing the most ridiculous, like, like blue silk vests.
He's sitting in a hunting lodge. It's the most ridiculous looking. He seems like one
of the celebs. I've enjoyed his work. Work. I don't know if I would want
to be stuck next to him on a plane. I agree. Yeah, I would absolutely
rather sit next to Eddie Murphy. 100% sure. Anyway, so they.
Ackroyd comes in and he's like smoking a cigar, whatever. And Ophelia
says, hey, we're all together. Which is like silly. Like she doesn't know the other.
Doesn't know these other people supposedly. But like, let's have a picnic. You help me
with my hook sack again, you know, so. So Beaks gets back up to grab
the backpack, but this time when Aykroyd and Murphy try to switch the briefcases again
or whatever. Or he tried. Tries to switch with Beaks. Beaks notices
and so he recognizes it and that's. And he. And he rips the. The wig
and the hat off. Like, oh, I got you, you know, Winthorpe or whatever,
you know, And I love it. It's like the two baggage handlers who we've seen
a couple times this point delivering a gorilla onto the train, which really is an
important part. Al Franken. One of them is Al Franken. Yeah. They come in kind
of accidentally or whatever. Like, oh, hey, sorry, I didn't know this was full.
And Beaks has got the gun and he's like. Like, I'll rip out your eyes
and piss on your brain or something. Like, like he's. God damn, dude. Like,
yeah, it's wild. So. And they take off, right? And.
And Beaks now has them there and he's like, okay, the party's over.
As the Jim Belushi. Yeah. In the ape costume
comes and he's like, the party's over. What are you talking about the party's over?
It's not even 10 o'. Clock. So saved by the doofiness of
like one of those party dudes so
he distracts them enough and they end up subduing Beaks. Right. They put
him, the gorilla like hits him in the head or whatever because he hit Jim
Balushi's character who's wearing the ape costume in front of the real gorilla. He like
hits him, the gorilla gets mad and hits Beaks and knocks him out real quick
though why would Beaks be comfortable leaving his real briefcase in the
car? Right. And taking these four or five people or four
people to shoot them. Right. But it's like, I know, I don't think he would
have left his briefcase, but either way he's now knocked out. Out. They wrap,
you know, duct tape around his mouth and basically put him in Jim Belushi's costume
and somehow get him into the cage. Yeah, let's not ask how that happened.
When, when we see. So then Jim Belushi comes back in the party. Yeah,
go for it. So Jim Belushi comes back to the party and he's just in
like an undershirt and under and like boxers. And he looks
around, he goes, hey, look what happened to me. And everyone just starts cheering
and like there's no, there's no like hey dude,
I got, got pretty violently robbed of my possessions.
So anyway, love the Jim Belush effect in this one. It's definitely,
definitely funny stuff. But, but anyway, so now the baggage handlers have come back
into the, the back and found Beaks.
They don't know his beaks is inside this costume, which like this gorilla costume does
not look anything like a gorilla. So it's amazing that everybody treats it. Like to
be fair, neither does the real gorilla. Well that's true. It's also a bad costume.
But, but basically I've always, I always wondered in this scene literally like
this is not something I just came to this time, it's every time I understand
that Beaks mouth is taped. Why doesn't he just pull the mask off?
Yeah, it's like a hood helmet type pull over your face.
Why doesn't he just pull that off? Anyway, after Beaks is forcibly penetrated
by the other gorilla, we cut away from the train to the towers of
the World Trade Center. That's right. Rest in peace. Rest in peace. They're going to
the World Trade center to really get, get. I love these
trading floor scenes from the 80s. It's always so fascinating to me. I still don't
fully understand how any order is kept. You know, I know you have pre
numbered shit, whatever, but it seems just so chaotic and I
know it's Meant to, right? And it's meant to scare people away. From, you know,
there's even a moment like during this sort of sequence where you see, I think
when they end up looking at the TVs for the actual crop report, which we'll
get to in a minute, you can see that the pad Aykroyd is holding and
it's just scribbles. Yeah, like it's literally just pencil scribbles all over. Like that's what
he's been doing, you know, in the scene kind of of thing. But yeah,
we should back up a little bit. So the Dukes arrive at the exchange and
they tell their trader, buy frozen concentrate orange juice, it doesn't matter how,
how high the price goes, bye, bye, bye. And he's like, well s.
Like the crop report will come out in an hour. What if you let us
worry about that? Just buy, right? And he gets it. He's like, oh, they've got
info. Okay, so they do that. Then Valentine and Winthorpe
have taken money from Coleman and Melia, basically their life savings to like, you know,
sort of, sort of fund this effort they're going to do. Which, like the way
it works out, I think the, the margin call, they end as long as they
had margin available. I don't think they actually need any cash because they end up
so far ahead, right on margin. But that's okay regardless, they end up
going there as well. And Winthorpe's trying to tell Valentine like,
hey man, this is killer. Be killed, you know, take no prisoners in the pits,
nothing, you know, got to kill him. We're going to fuck, we're going to kill
him. Like he stops himself from swearing again. When the traders are getting ready.
There's good scene of the guys kind of stressing out in front of the mirror
right before the trading open opens and doing the cop, the classic
combo like the whiskey and the Pepto, you know, like our buddy in Cape Fear.
That's right, yes, like Joe Don Baker. But yeah, so yeah, they're talking and
then, but Winthorpe and Valentine are super cool and collected. Valentine's got his like Afro
pick, he's like getting his hair right and Winthrop's combing his hair and they're just
chill. The. Some bell rings, obviously not to start trading but some kind of indicator.
You get out to the floor, they slowly head on out there. And so of
course their idea is, if I can figure that, if I can explain it as
succinctly as possible, their idea is to wait until the price goes high
and Then take sell and then
sell orders to other people who want to buy. Right. So now they will then
be selling at a high price. Then when the crop report comes out and
which they know it's going to come out and say there's going to be plenty
of orange crop, it's not going to be, you know, a scarce commodity this year.
The price will start going down and then when it reaches the bottom,
then they will start taking buy orders. So the, they're kind of doing it backwards,
but the idea is they are buying low and selling high, making a profit.
Right. And. And you just have to settle by the end of the day.
Exactly. The key is the actual in, in the day, it doesn't matter. At the
end of the day, it's like, oh, how many orders do you have here?
And how many orders you have here, which are, you know, puts and calls or
whatever the hell the deal is. And, and it all, you know, wash comes out
in the wash and they'll be way up, you know, the way this works.
Meanwhile, the Dukes have told their guy to buy, buy, buy no matter
what. And so he is buying at every single price point and continuing to
buy even at the high prices when Winthorpe and Valentine are taking sell orders.
Yep. And that's sort of the gist of it is like it really boils down
to the Dukes are buying high and selling low and
Winthorpe and Valentine are buying low and selling high, and that's how their money
essentially changes hands. Yep, that's basically it. Yeah. And,
and you know, it's a good scene of, of the Duke's
like, private trader guy who's just losing his mind as
the price starts dropping after this crop report comes out. Right. And,
and he's like fainting and, you know, and they're just like shoving
him back, his, his limp body, like, get back in there and.
Get back in there and sell there and sell. Although, well, you wouldn't want him
to sell at that point. It's not like, yeah, lower and lower prices, but like,
I don't know. So, you know, the end of the day, basically we see
that they're out. They, they made all these deals
on margin, like they didn't make it with cash they had on hand. So $390
million and I mean, 390. Million in $1983 for
like a day of action. Right. It's like over a billion dollars today.
Yeah. And I think it was this judge guy, the guy who looks like a
cross between Leroy Neiman and Sebastian Gorka and Holy
Shit. He does. He's. He's gorkish. He really is gorkish. So,
yeah, so he's basically, like, revokes their seat. Yeah, well, you have to sell it,
basically. Apparently it has value. So, yeah, you got to liquidate their assets. Assets,
Personal assets. The assets of the firm. Like, everything's gone. It's basically Duke and Duke
Commodities Brokers is out of business. Yeah. The Duke brothers themselves are gonna have no
personal assets, no seat on the exchange. It's all done. They're ruined. And now I
don't think that that means that Valentine and. And Winthorpe made $394 million,
but they made hundred, probably hundreds of lions. Yeah, it's nine figures for sure.
Yeah. Which, like, split four ways even is crazy wonderful. So. Yeah,
yeah, so. So they get to tell them, you know, like,
oh, they're Valentine and Winthorpe,
see the Dukes, and they're like, oh, we do have a bet to settle,
don't we? And then they exchange the dollar between the two of them, which is
really funny. I also love when. When they come for the margin call, Randolph looks
like he has, like, a heart attack. Like, he clutches his chest and falls.
And the judge goes, mortimer, your brother. And Mortimer goes, fuck him. Put those machines
back on.
And then we cut to kind of the final scene. It's the Beat beach,
some beautiful tropical beach somewhere. There's a boat just off the shore, and on the
boat are Louie and Ophelia. And on the shore is, you know,
Valentine with a beautiful girl next to him and Coleman with a beautiful girl on
his arm. And I love that, you know, this, like. Like, you know, first of
all, there's the. The replay of the, you know, looking good, Louis. Feeling good,
Todd is, you know, looking good, Louis. Feeling good, Billy Ray or whatever, whichever way
it goes. And then Billy Ray, you know, goes, hey,
Coleman, man, what should we do about lunch? Lobsters. The crack lobster. The crack crab.
And Coleman asks his girl, you're like, what should we have? And she goes,
why can't we have both? And both. And. And he, like, calls over to,
like, you know, the servant boy or whatever, and I love this guy's response is
extra primo. Good, Mr. Coleman.
Lobster and cracked crab for everyone. I love that Coleman
got to order from the. You know, it's like all these. All these ends are
tied up in this movie. Yeah. He is dressed a little bit like Ricardo Montalban
in. What was it? What's that show called?
Not Forbidden island is a Fantasy Island. Fantasy Island.
Oh, man. So that's it. So that is Trading Places. Yeah. And it just
ends. I mean, great movie. And I guess. Do you want me
to do my rating first? Yeah, man, go for it. This is your pick.
Give us, give us your take. I'm so glad I picked this one. I mean,
this is just. It's so enduring. I don't see what I would take
out or change in this movie. I mean, I really don't see a lot of
fat. It looks great. It's acted well. Yeah. And like
a little additional credit for it for being
like a Christmas movie that you can bust out in lieu of, you know,
certain shit that you're sometimes forced to watch. So, yeah,
enjoyed it just as much on this go round. I love John
Land Landis movies and this is a five out
of five for me. This is just, it's so fun. If you haven't seen this
for sure, see it and you can watch it any time of the year.
Oh yeah, it's very satisfying. It's, you know, there's certain dated stuff that
you're not thrilled to, to see, but I mean, you know, it's 40 years
old and I don't think it's like in a mean spirited way necessarily.
Like the way that this stuff shows up is in a satirical way as
opposed to like the actual point of view of the film. So five out of
five for the boys. Trading Places. I loved it. This was super fun.
Steve, which you think? Yeah, I mean, I think I'm almost where you're at.
I think I'm quite there. It really is a ton of fun. It, it,
you know, highly recommend. I. You can't not recommend this movie. It's a fantastic movie.
You know, I, to be totally honest, don't love seeing Ackroyd and blackface, even though
I just a few minutes ago I was trying to kind of explain how it's
not really Ackroyd, it's Winthorpe, you know, whatever. But that's not ideal. I do
think the majority of the, like, not the majority, vast majority of the kind of
offensive pieces that are in it are like in a movie like Blazing Saddles.
They are there to deliver, deliberately poke fun at and to point out, you know,
that this is reality for some people and, or was at the time. And,
and so there's that. Yeah, love this movie. It's a ton of fun. I think
I'm like a four and a half out of five. Not quite the five out
of five for myself, but you know, this Trading Places, it's so great.
And that's a nine and a half out of ten from us. Kind of almost
can't get higher praise from the two dads. But seriously,
we. Yeah, there you go. And. Okay, well, that's our first installment of the
dad calendar. Love it. Dadvent season. And we got to open another door in
this thing. Steve, that's going to be you, buddy. What do we got? Next week
we're going to. Yeah. Crack open the next door on the Dadvent calendar and we're
going to see a movie that is actually a personal favorite of my wife and
I as Christmas movies. And we showed it. I saw it originally probably
in college and then I showed it to her when we first started dating.
Like the first Christmas we were together. Like, have you seen this movie? She's like,
no. And I'm like, oh, you got to watch it. Okay. She fell in love
with it. We showed it like a year later to her parents. They hated it.
They could not stand it. My folks think this movie is funny,
but her parents, my in laws, did not. It is a pure Christmas movie.
A lot more of an obvious Christmas movie than Trading Places is. Takes place only
on Christmas Eve. Basically the entire episode, the entire movie takes place over the course
of the day and evening of Christmas Eve set in the little town of Old
Bay Brook in Connecticut. And it stars Dennis Leary,
Kevin Spacy and the incomparable Judy Davis. We're gonna see the
Ref, which is one of my favorite Christmas movies of the 90s. I have never
seen it. I'm excited to check this one out for the first time.
Yes. It's not. It's not maybe not the best Christmas movie ever, but it's one
of those. It's both has nostalgia for me and I think has a few pieces
of just absolute peak mid-90s like fashion and home decor and different
things that you can really pick on. So that'll be great. Beautiful. Yeah. Next week
we will watch the Wrath. That about wraps it up. So if you like what
you hear, and we hope you do, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify
and leaving us a five star review. It really helps new folks find the show.
If you want to drop us a line, share your thoughts on an episode,
tell us what we got wrong, or suggest a movie we should do next time
you can do so at the show@2dads1movie.com.
That's the number two and the number one. And by the way, 2dads1movie.com, we also
have a website there. You can go there. Really fun website. It's got all kinds
of connections between the films and the people that have been in the films and
our ratings. And there's, there's stats. There's just a whole bunch of
stuff. And I'm going to keep asking, adding to it. So go check it out.
You can also follow us on Instagram @2dads1movie. Once again,
this has been Trading Places, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.
And I'm Nick. Thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you next week.