Trading Places

Corrected entry: In the scene on the train why did they try to switch the briefcase twice when they had already stolen it and passed it off once successfully?

Correction: That is not a mistake. They had to see what the real crop report said so they could swap it with whatever was the opposite. The first case they swapped had nothing in it. It was just so Mr. Beaks would not notice his case was missing. Once they viewed what the report said they switched it with a report that stated the opposite. At this point they now had to switch the cases again.

Corrected entry: When Valentine, and Winthorpe, are sitting in the living room you hear them talking but you can barely hear the TV. But as soon as Clarence Beaks' name is mentioned on the TV, all of a sudden the volume goes up without anyone touching a button. (01:25:20)

Rollin Garcia Jr

Correction: The TV's volume doesn't actually change within the context of the scene, it only does so to draw the audience's attention. When Valentine and Winthorpe are speaking the film's audio is focused on their dialogue so the audience can hear them without the sound of the TV interfering. Then when Beaks appears on the TV, the audio is now focused on the televised news report.

Corrected entry: When Winthorpe tries shooting himself in the head and the gun fails to discharge a bullet, he tosses the gun aside. The sound the gun makes when it fires and hits is a very poor sound effect and could not have fit realistically into that scene.

Daniel Garner

Correction: Wrong. It is completely realistic. What is not realistic is the sound effects normally used for gunshots in the movies - real guns sound nothing like they do on the screen. The sound effect here sounds like a live recording of a real (blank) shot.

Corrected entry: Coleman is told by Louis to "have the dessert" at dinner. It then swtiches to Coleman emptying the skillet's contents into the trash, and as he walks away, the telephone rings. He holds the skillet next to him, and it's completely clean. There's no sign of food being cooked.

Correction: He was cooking a crepe in a non stick pan- it slides out completely without anything left- not a mistake.

Corrected entry: In the very last scene, Eddy Murphy is on the beach, and Dan Ackroyd, with Jamie Lee Curtis is on a yacht. They exchange what are now classic lines: "Looking good, Billy Ray!" "Feeling good, Louis!" But the yacht is way off shore. There's no way they could hear each other at such a distance, even at the loud voice that we as viewers hear. (01:52:05)

Correction: They could have easily heard each other. #1 - They both deliver their lines in a louder than a normal speaking voice to compensate for the distance: something just shy of shouting. #2 - They are at what appears to be a private cove. One of the things people find attractive about a private beach is that it is quiet. There are no other people in that scene creating noise, and there is no noise from waves crashing against the shore. The water is perfectly calm. #3- There is an overhead helicopter shot at the end of this scene where we can see the exact distance between the yacht and the Billy Ray on the shore. And you can see it really isn't anchored that far from the edge of the beach. Certainly within loud voice on a quiet beach distance. If it were far away, that would defeat the purpose of getting to and from the shore. So between the quiet shore and lack of surf noise, them speaking much louder than normal, and the yacht not being that far away, Billy Ray and Louis could EASILY hear each other.

HuskyMiller

Corrected entry: Take a close look at the badges worn on the breast pockets in the stock exchange scenes by Ackroyd and Murphy. They change colour from green to grey.

Correction: Lighting in some shots make them appear lighter and darker, but they are the same dark green color throughout.

Corrected entry: When Billy Ray and Winthorpe arrive in Lower Manhattan near the end of the film, they get out of the car at the World Trade Center, which is actually several blocks north of Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange. Why didn't the driver simply let them off right in front of the NYSE? Furthermore, they are shown walking across the WTC's plaza, meaning they either left the cab on the far side of the Trade Center, which simply doesn't make any sense, or they were just walking in the wrong direction. Wouldn't Winthorpe, who knows his way around the Stock Exchange, be much more able to navigate Lower Manhattan?

Correction: They weren't trading stocks, which are traded at the NYSE. They were trading F.C.O.J. - a futures product - traded at the New York Mercantile Exchange, which was, at one time, located in the WTC.

Trading Places mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: After Mortimer's comment that Billy Ray has probably been stealing since he could crawl, when it cuts to the two officers opening the squad doors to place Billy Ray at the back of the vehicle, the barndoor set lighting is visible over the squad car at the top right corner of the screen. (00:18:25)

Super Grover

More mistakes in Trading Places

Louis Winthorpe III: He was wearing my Harvard tie. Can you believe it? My Harvard tie. Like oh, sure he went to Harvard.

More quotes from Trading Places
More trivia for Trading Places

Question: I don't understand when Louie's finance was waiting at the police station for him to get released, a man sits down and asks about her purse - what was that all about?

Answer: It's about nothing. The man is not exactly normal, and he begins a nonsense conversation with a very prim, uptight woman who looks like she should be anywhere but there.

raywest

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