Category: John Landis

TRADING PLACES

By Marc S. Sanders

Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy are the unaware invitees of a Prince And The Pauper R-rated, yet whimsical, scenario in John Landis’ Trading Places.  They are one of the best on screen pairings in film, and this is one of the best comedies to come out of the 1980s.

Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche – another brilliant on-screen duo) are the filthy rich misers who live to make more and more money and use their wealth to cheat and make even more monies or to perhaps use those that are at their behest to test certain social experiments.  Namely, Randoph believes that regardless of a man’s environmental upbringing, anyone can become a success based on their merits.  Mortimer believes otherwise.  It’s in the blood, he claims.  Who you spawn from is how you are destined to become.  To settle this debate, they make a modest bet of switching out their protégé investment representative, Louis Winthorpe (Aykroyd), with homeless bum/con artist Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy).  Deplete Louis of all his possessions and wealth along with his sparkling reputation, his lovely fiancée, his friends and even his faithful butler, Coleman (Denholm Elliot).  At the same time, establish Billy Ray as an up and comer in the WASP Hoi Polloi and award him all of Louis’ assets, along with assistance from Coleman.  Then they will see what shakes out and who wins the bet.  A plot like this was staged in a few Three Stooges shorts during a post Great Depression phase.

The premise for Trading Places allows for a lot of gags that consistently serve the story set mostly in Philadelphia around Christmas and New Year’s.  The holidays lend an atmosphere to the picture.  The brutal cold seems to only make it downright worse for poor Louis, the suddenly accused drug dealer and petty thief.  It only looks worse for him when he’s dressed in a dirty Santa Claus suit and getting peed on by a dog just before the cold rain arrives.  For Billy Ray, the warm comforts of Louis’ home seem like a welcome respite from the chilly, damp streets he likely has slept upon night after night.  If not on the street, then in a jail cell. 

The characterizations are perfect.  I get a kick of Dan Aykroyd’s performance of Louis, the contemptible snob with not one hair out of place and the arrogant tone of his line delivery.  Eddie Murphy is basically doing his routine from all of his early work like Saturday Night Live and 48 Hrs or Beverly Hills Cop.  Yet, I have no complaints.  He’s just funny as hell and the dialogue lends to his basic schtick.  This is the Eddie Murphy I miss from most of his modern film releases.  Denholm Elliott is great at often breaking his regal character to refer to someone as a scumbag.  Bellamy and Ameche are equivalent to wicked stepsisters from a fantasy story.  They are scheming and dreadful with glee.  Paul Gleeson is that “seen that guy somewhere before” henchman working in line with the Dukes.  He’s a great jerk who gets Louis and Billy Ray into their unexpected predicament.  Jamie Lee Curtis is unforgettable as a hooker with a heart of gold, convinced to help out a poor down on his luck Louis when there’s nothing else available to his assist.  She portrays Ophelia whose got the street smarts and sometimes the Judy Holliday squeak in her voice to lend to the spoof comedy this film relies upon.  It’s hard to believe this is the same actor who was a scream queen in a couple of slasher flicks a few years before this film’s release. Never a glamourous actor, but Jamie Lee Curtis has such an amazing range that still surprises in newer films of today (see her Oscar winning performance in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once).

The imagination into this film’s story has to be admired.  When Louis and Billy Ray become aware of the ruse pulled against them, it’s suggested not to kill the villains in cold blood. Rather do unto them what they already committed. Thus, a wonderfully energetic third act is welcomed on the floor of the New York Commodities Exchange that hinges on insider trading and realistic mass hysteria for a silly, yet highly valuable commodity such as Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice.

John Landis incorporates so many side gags into Trading Places.  Imagine Billy Ray intruding upon the wealthy’s exclusive club of snobs and you get a memorable caption of ten police officers pointing their guns in his face.  Poor Louis being subjected to a strip search conducted by nerdy Frank Oz.  Randoph and Mortimer explaining how commodities trading functions to Billy Ray thereby inviting Eddie Murphy to break the fourth wall for a moment.  Even one of my favorite actors of today, Giancarlo Esposito, makes a blink and miss it appearance as Billy Ray tells a tall tale of how he got arrested after using the “Quart of Blood Technique” on ten cops at one time while two hilarious jail cell thugs listen in to his BS.  A train ride to set the victims’ plot of revenge in motion is great involving silly disguises, a New Year’s Eve costume party attended by James Belushi, and a live gorilla.  Even Bo Diddley gets a scene with Louis trying to sell his expensive wristwatch while wearing the ugliest sports jacket and tie combination.

I yearn for another comedy that reunites Aykroyd and Murphy.  We were treated to a little sampling of Bellamy and Ameche in Murphy’s later film, Coming To America.  Oh, how I wish those guys could have capitalized on that small scene.  They pair just as well as Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau did. 

Trading Places is always a perfect holiday movie to watch in December.  It’s funny, charming, and very smart.  It remains one of the best comedies ever offered by any of the cast members listed in this film.

Looking good Billy Ray!

Feeling good Louis!

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE

By Marc S. Sanders

When a film opens with two students walking across a college campus as the classical horn music of proud alumni accompany them, and then one of the students stops to pull up his fly, you know you are probably in for a contrast of ideals.

Animal House set a new standard in comedy featuring a John Belushi whose expressions and improvisations appeared too fast for the camera to catch everything he’s doing. The script never gave him much dialogue because his routines of smashing beer bottles, smashing guitars, smashing beer cans and just getting smashed merited no dialogue. He might have looked like a dirty slob, but he was a craftsman of facial expressions.

Every scene of Animal House plays like an episode of an ongoing sitcom; a raunchy one at that. A dead horse, a pledge ceremony, a toga party, a sabotaged parade, and a food fight. Each topic is the title of a sitcom’s various episodes.

John Landis directed the snobs vs slobs script co-written by Harold Ramis, and 40 years later the material still holds up. Then again, 40 years later, I wonder if this film would even get made. I’d rather not dwell on that.

What I do know is that this movie is still funny. Outrageously funny.

COMING TO AMERICA

By Marc S. Sanders

Now Coming To America is a special kind of film. It’s rare movie where you’ll find a G rated story wrapped in R rated material and ultimately that is what Eddie Murphy and director John Landis brilliantly achieved.

Murphy plays Prince Akeem living a privileged life in the country of Zamunda where he has his own personal butt wipers and concubines who ensure him the royal penis is clean. He is now of the age where he is ready to meet his bride who has been groomed since birth to accommodate every need and preference the Prince has. However, Akeem is mature enough to realize that he wants to be married to someone who likes him for who he is, and not his wealth and stature. So with his best friend Simi (Arsenio Hall) in tow, they travel to Queens, New York under the guise of poor, humble people to find Akeem’s true love.

The story is Disney like and very simple. The gags are what has allowed Coming To America to hold on to its beloved longevity over thirty years later. It is one of Murphy’s last great films before he resorted to a lot of silly kiddie tripe like Daddy Day Care. This is a film that does a 180 flip on the Beverly Hills Cop storyline. In Cop, Murphy was the loudmouth offensive stranger in strange land. In this film, he remains a stranger, only this time the setting is full of loudmouths; this is Queens after all. Akeem is a lovable guy with good intentions and sensitivity. When he meets Lisa (Shari Headley) the daughter of a McDonald’s rip off franchisee (a hilarious John Amos), he becomes enamored and approaches with care despite her dating a jerk (Eriq La Salle) who inherited his family’s “Soul Glo” hair product enterprise.

The best attraction of the film however are Murphy and Hall’s various other characters they portray like Murphy as Randy Watson, lead singer of the band Sexual Chocolate (you know him as Joe the Policeman from the What’s Going Down? episode of That’s My Momma) and Hall as Reverend Brown who believes “There is a god someWHERE!!!” Not to mention the barbers who hang out beneath their apartment. Murphy and Hall are such a skilled pair of chemistry together. Why didn’t they do more films together? Harlem Knights? Ahem…let’s just not talk about that.

Landis was a good comedy director, a staple of the 1980’s films who would let the talents play for the camera and not try to reinvent the wheel. His approach here is the same as when he directed Murphy with Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places, or when he helmed Michael Jackson’s legendary Thriller music video. He knew these guys knew what they were doing. So, he just positioned the camera and let them go. Coming To America does run a little too long in some moments. I’m impressed by Paula Abdul’s choreography of tribal dancers, but I didn’t need to see all three minutes of it. A few of those moments run long, when all I want to do is get to the next gag or story development.

Still, if you are not a prude, I recommend Coming To America for a family viewing with your pre teen kids. I showed it to my daughter who is at the age when the sheer utterance of a curse word is hysterical; that’s a rite of passage in childhood as far as I’m concerned. The film contains no overt sexually active scenes, but there is some female nudity, and so what? My daughter knows what she is looking at. Bottom line Coming To America is a sweet Cinderella story that kids will love and adults will laugh at, over and over again until they know every line by heart.