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December 23, 2024

How Philly took a starring role in the 1983 holiday comedy 'Trading Places'

A former staffer at the Community College of Philadelphia, featured as a police station in the film, recalled Eddie Murphy distracting students.

Kristin Hunt PhillyVoice

By Kristin Hunt PhillyVoice Staff

Movies History

Trading Places Philly Movieclips/YouTube

Eddie Murphy shot scenes as hustler Billy Ray Valentine for 'Trading Places' in Rittenhouse Square. Other locations that were featured in the film includes the Curtis Institute of Music.

New York can claim "Elf" and "Miracle on 34th Street," but Philadelphia has "Trading Places," the raunchy retelling of "The Prince and the Pauper" that doubles as a Christmas classic.

The movie shot its exteriors in the city over a few weeks in 1982 and 1983. And while some landmarks appear untouched in the film — including Rittenhouse Square and the steel "Clothespin" statue on Market Street — others got a makeover for their roles in the comedy.

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MORE: New Magic Gardens exhibit features tiles salvaged from the mosaic on the former Painted Bride Art Center

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The production notably transformed the Curtis Institute of Music into the members-only Heritage Club, where the wealthy Duke brothers (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) scheme to ruin their employee's life for a social experiment. The Wells Fargo Building on Broad Street became the headquarters of Duke & Duke, the commodities brokerage firm where these evil bosses and their unfortunate test subject Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) work. The Community College of Philadelphia also put in a star turn as the police station that Louis, sex worker Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis) and hustler Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), who takes Louis's place in the Philadelphia upper crust, all pass through as the story unfolds. The "Trading Places" crew borrowed a historic building on the school's main campus that once served as a branch of the U.S. Mint.

"It was a big moment," recalled William Thompson, the former assistant to the CCP president of public relations. "There weren't a lot of films being shot in Philadelphia ... (but) first my thought was, 'No, I don't wanna do a police station. My god, we're a community college. What kind of image is that going to convey?'"

After Thompson warmed to the idea, he worked with director John Landis and other key players in the production to turn the building into a convincing police station. One of their first concerns was the college's logo on one of the windows. They asked to remove it, with the promise that they would replace it when shooting wrapped.

Movieclips/YouTube

The former U.S. Mint building on the Community College of Philadelphia campus posed as a police station in the 1983 movie.

Another problem was the heating, or lack thereof. The CCP was in the midst of renovations at the Mint building, which meant the HVAC systems weren't fully up and running. This made for less than ideal conditions for a December to January shoot.

"Jamie (Lee Curtis), if you see her costume, had very little that she was able to wear," Thompson said. "The poor gal was — there was a security office just as you come in to the right — and so she was freezing in there with Dan Aykroyd."

The movie arrived just as Murphy, the breakout star of "Saturday Night Live," was establishing a film career. His celebrity did not go unnoticed in Philadelphia. According to a 1983 People report, a cop sat outside Murphy's trailer to control his fans during the "Trading Places" production. Thompson remembers a moment when the 21-year-old star unintentionally brought classes to a crashing halt at the Masterman School across the street.

"When Eddie Murphy pulled up, the kids opened the windows and started shouting, 'Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,'" Thompson remembered. "And of course, they couldn't shoot. They couldn't do the outdoor things if they were shouting out the window. So Eddie Murphy, good guy that he is, walked across the street, stood in the courtyard and talked to the kids for a few minutes and played his comedic characters that he does. And then he said, 'OK kids, I gotta get back to work. And you gotta get back to work because education is important.' Something along those lines. 'Do me a big favor. Go back to your class. Shut the windows and let me go to work.' And they all did it."

Paramount Movies/YouTube

Jamie Lee Curtis as Ophelia pauses in front of the 'Clothespin' statue by Claes Oldenburg at 15th and Market streets.

Thompson made a pitch to Murphy's people for a PSA promoting community college education — the comedian briefly attended Nassau Community College — that didn't materialize. He did take the actor and some other cast members on a tour of the Mint building before the production packed up to shoot the movie's interior scenes in New York. But sometime after the crew had left campus, Thompson remembered looking up at that window with the college's logo back in its usual spot and nearly having a heart attack.

"They spelled 'community' wrong," Thompson said. "I went ballistic. I said, 'Well cover it up. I can't have somebody take a picture of that. The Community College of Philadelphia doesn't know how to spell its own name?' No one will believe me that it was the film company."

The "Trading Places" team corrected the error in less than a week, by his recollection, and everyone was so amused that the college didn't hide the mistake in the interim. In a decades-later twist, Thompson eventually left the education world to act on sets himself. He's appeared in shows like "Chicago PD" and "Chicago Fire" in his new home in Illinois, but he doesn't regret not asking Landis for an extra role in "Trading Places" when he had the chance.

"Extras are like chairs," he joked. "You just keep your mouth shut and make sure you have thick shoes on and your long johns for exterior shots."

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Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin\_hunt | @thePhillyVoice Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Have a news tip? Let us know.

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