Posted on 12/13/2025 6:11:45 PM PST by DoodleBob
Some films are obviously Christmas movies, like Noelle. But that designation is not so clear cut for others. They may be set during the holiday season, and they may even touch upon Christmas themes, but does that mean they truly qualify in the traditional sense? …And the latest movie to take the stand in our great Christmas movie debate is hoping its season stock(ing) is about to go up. That’s right, it’s time to buy or sell holiday shares in Trading Places.
How much of Trading Places takes place at Christmastime?
Roughly 75% of Trading Places is set during Christmas time in chilly Philadelphia. (The other 25% runs from New Year’s Eve to January 2, with the final sequence on a tropical island taking place a during an unknown time in the near future.) The film is full of festive trees and other holiday decor, though not much Christmas music. A big important sequence also takes place during a Christmas Eve work party, which Dan Aykroyd’s Winthorpe crashes in the dirtiest Santa costume ever put on screen. It’s both delightful and disgusting.
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Do any of the film’s major themes apply to Christmas?
Some very important themes have no connection with traditional Christmas ones. Those include racism, nature vs. nurture, and revenge. But some of the film’s biggest ideas certainly apply to the season. Greed, class structure, friendship, and kindness are all out of Charles Dickens’ holiday playbook.
(Excerpt) Read more at nerdist.com ...
It works on so many different levels. Comedy, drama, morality play…indeed, to some extent, I could argue that Winthorpe and Valentine are the first Deplorables, and Duke & Duke are the current Democrat party.
In comparison, that other Christmas movie Die Hard is a ‘go-easy-on-crime’ lefty hootenanny. Hans Gruber dies…big deal. Duke and Duke are ruined and live on, bankrupt, while the Good Guys live happily ever after. Now THAT is Justice!
And, of course…Christmas.
Hey ! It’s not Christmas till Hans falls from Nakitomi Plaza!
Yes. End of discussion.
Jamie Lee’s bare breasts is a Xmas gift.
But I don’t think it’s better than Die Hard.
Fatman
I like ‘em both.
And they are both Christmas movies.
The world is going to martial law, and we are discussing what is the best Christmas movie....
I like both movies but Trading Places is more entertaining.
Just in case you watch this with kids,
be warned that in the uncensored version, Jamie Lee Curtis
displays her Christmas “ornaments” in Trading Places.
was before my time. would like to watch it now.
Set at Christmas, it has all of the elements of a Purim plot, even though it was released in June.
The Hebrew title is משנה מקום משנה מזל
Change place change fortune (mazal)
Besides, the New Year new beginning theme really connects with the beginning of the Torah, because it literally begins with a big bet.
I don’t have a clip handy, but 353 is the number on the machine in the “turn those machines back on!” scene, being the dramatic New Year’s conclusion but not quite the end yet.
It’s like how the Hebrew years are commonly 354 or 355 days.
The only numbers that count in the movie are “Sell 300 April at 42.”
Turn those machines back on, turn those machines back on.
Don’t forget about the 5 dollars.
And in a party scene, several women are dancing topless IIRC.
“be warned that in the uncensored version, Jamie Lee Curtis
displays her Christmas “ornaments” in Trading Places”
And they are / were marvelous!
The good guys also shoe great wisdom and get out of that filthy NYC sewer.
McLane is still stuck in L.A.
I bet you they don’t even need to be bare for them to be considered a Xmas gift. Am I right?
To quote another movie “They’re real, and they’re spectacular”.
CC
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