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TRADING PLACES
August 15, 2017  | By David Bianculli  | 1 comment

Showtime, 5:15 p.m. ET

 

I’m used to dull TV days during the summer, especially in August – but today may well be the dullest day of the year, with next to nothing to recommend, much less watch. In such cases, it’s best to scour the listings to find some entertaining old movies. I’ve found two, and this is one of them. From 1983, directed by John Landis and showcasing some photogenic Philadelphia locations, this comedy was part of the pop-culture trifecta vaulting a young Eddie Murphy to stardom (the others were Saturday Night Live and 48 HRS.). In this clever comedy, Murphy plays a street hustler, and Dan Aykroyd a privileged preppie, whose lives a pair of wealthy brothers (Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche) overturn and disrupt on a bet. Everyone’s terrific, as are Denholm Elliott as an eventually sympathetic butler and, lest we forget, Jamie Lee Curtis as an eventually sympathetic hooker. Or lust we forget, because Curtis not only was hilarious, but was unforgettably slinky.   

 
 
 
 
 
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1 Comments
 
 
Wow.
Where do you watch this?
Really curious to see Eddie...
Aug 15, 2017   |  Reply
 
 
 
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