Trading Places – (1983)

Director: John Landis

Starring: Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis

I never get tired of Trading Places.  It combines class, humour, satire, sight gags, romance, action, revenge, redemption, and just a touch of exquisite nudity. Aykroyd and Murphy were in that brief period of their careers when both were funny and that seems so long ago.  Jamie Lee Curtis was switching from scream queen to comic actress that led her to A Fish Called Wanda.  Director John Landis’s masterstroke was casting veteran actors Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche as the vicious, rich old men who cause all the problems. Both had been forgotten by Hollywood, but hadn’t lost their talent giving life and cartoonish charm to their characters. Who can forget Dan Aykroyd dressed as Santa stuffing the Christmas feast into his pants.