Great Character: Billy Ray Valentine (“Trading Places”)
This month’s theme: Fish Out Of Water. Today: Billy Ray Valentine from the 1983 comedy Trading Places, written by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod.
Laugh-out-loud legend Eddie Murphy spent the first four years of the 1980s revolutionizing television comedy as a cast member on the epic TV phenomenon Saturday Night Live. But Murphy also wisely made time to rightfully earn three consecutive motion picture Golden Globe nominations from 1983–1985 with a trio of comedic classics: 48 Hrs, Beverly Hills Cop and his odd couple fish-out-of-water paring with fellow SNL alumni Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places, playing con man turned commerce man Billy Ray Valentine.
The late Roger Ebert favorably critiqued Trading Places with 3 ½ out of 4 stars by acknowledging:
“It’s especially good because it doesn’t stop with sitcom manipulations of its idea, and it doesn’t go only for the obvious points about racial prejudice in America. Instead, it develops the quirks and peculiarities of its characters, so that they’re funny because of whom they are.”
Trading Places plot summary from IMDB:
A snobbish investor and a wily street con artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.
Billy Ray Valentine and Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) are pawns in a “The Prince and the Pauper” switcheroo that forces the wealthy commodity broker WInthorpe to lose everything at the hands of an unethical $1 nature-vs-nurture bet between his bosses The Duke Brothers. Valentine finds himself suddenly swept off the street and living in Winthorpe’s enviably domestic dwelling, being carted around in Winthorpe’s Mercedes Benz and spending his $80,000 a year salary (30 years ago…so adjust for inflation). Valentine shows us early on in Trading Places just how comfortable he is with adapting to peculiar surroundings. How unfamiliar is Billy Ray Valentine with his newfound Fortune 500 lifestyle? Consider Valentine’s pre-Internet “crowd-funding” method of offline survival begging:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKtjBqJ4NxA
Eddie Murphy’s contagious swagger and manic unpredictable communication methods allow Billy Ray Valentine’s neurotic adjustments from street-to-elite to roar with distinctive quirkiness. Billy Ray offers enough screen presence and “screen presents” to give Santa Clause a break that Christmas. Billy Ray Valentine struggles to believe that this instant financial upgrade is really his life, while attempting to make the most of it while it is taking place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkkM9YAJ-Ts
The life of enjoying $35,000 vases and indoor hot tubs at home are enough to make Valentine perform a few hilarious observations and comparisons to his past life.
BILLY RAY VALENTINE: When I was growing up, if we wanted a Jacuzzi, we had to fart in the tub.
Upper class society is not the only place where Billy Ray Valentine is a fish-out-of-water. He must also over-compensate for his lack of brawling ability while in jail.
BILLY RAY VALENTINE: ’Cause I’m a karate man! And a karate man bruises on the inside! They don’t show their weakness. But you don’t know that because you’re a big Barry White looking motherfucker! So get outta my face!
If there is one fairly foreign arena where Bill Ray thrives in, it is making money in the commodity game, with an almost preternatural instinct for guessing the buying habits of the American public based on ramifications that make total sense to him:
BILLY RAY VALENTINE: Okay, pork belly prices have been dropping all morning, which means that everybody is waiting for it to hit rock bottom, so they can buy low. Which means that the people who own the pork belly contracts are saying, “Hey, we’re losing all our damn money, and Christmas is around the corner, and I ain’t gonna have no money to buy my son the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip! And my wife ain’t gonna f… my wife ain’t gonna make love to me if I got no money!”
For those that yell out “bull crap” in regards to Valentine’s seemingly sudden success with a career as complicated as commodities investment, let me share how I was able to suspend my disbelief.
Number One: Billy Ray is not trying to go back to shaking the old rusty tin can at random strangers for a living. He has an inherent incentive to make this work for him.
Number Two: He has proven that he can think on his feet in any environment, so why should the work place be any different?
Number Three: The Duke Brothers may be betting on Valentine’s success or failure. but make no mistake; they MUST have trained him to make them some money in the meantime. Director John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers) and screenwriters Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod, the scribe tribe from Twins and Brewster’s Millions, clearly weren’t interested in boring us with the on-the-job training details and “Good time to go to the bathroom” industry dialog and exposition. The final running time for Trading Places is already practically two hours — lengthy for a comedy. Instead, we get plenty of Valentine and Winthorpe’s Clash of the Social Classes.
For his intense matter-of-fact rhetoric, his slick-talking negotiation talent and his desire to be welcomed into the good life that has previously ignored his requests: Billy Ray Valentine is an On-the-Money GREAT CHARACTER.
Movies like Trading Places make me long for the 80’s again. Not the music. Not the politics. Not even many of the movies. But some of the movies were terrific — including this one.
Thanks again, Jason, for another Great Character post!
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