Trading Places Trading Places Trading Places is a 1983 American comedy film directed by John Landis and starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. It tells the story of an upper-class commodities broker and a homeless street hustler whose lives cross paths when they are unknowingly made part of an elaborate bet. Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, and Jamie Lee Curtis also star. The storyline is often called a modern take on Mark Twain's classic 19th-century novel "The Prince and the Pauper". The film was written by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod and was produced by Aaron Russo. It was released to
Eddie Murphy camera, in front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza—at Murphy's request, after he grew tired of constant demands from fans to "Do Buckwheat! Do Buckwheat!" In "Rolling Stone"s February 2015 appraisal of all 141 SNL cast members to date, Murphy was ranked second (behind John Belushi). "It is customary (and accurate) to say that Eddie Murphy is the only reason SNL survived the five-year wilderness without Lorne Michaels," they noted. In 1982, Murphy made his big screen debut in the film "48 Hrs." with Nick Nolte. "48 Hrs." proved to be a hit when it was released in the Christmas season of