THE FAMILY, NOT A COMMITTEE

A surname.
A world order.

Institutions have boards. Empires have dynasties. We trust the distinction requires no further explanation.

Ralph Bellamy as Randolph Duke and Don Ameche as Mortimer Duke shaking hands in Trading Places (1983) — RANDOLPH & MORTIMER DUKE TRADING PLACES, 1983

THE SENIOR PARTNERS

Two brothers.
Very few equals.

The order below is alphabetical.
It has already caused a disagreement.

TRADING PLACES · 1983 DON AMECHE

PARTNER 01

Senior partner · Standards & objections

Mortimer Duke

If everyone were meant to have a seat at the table, it would be a larger table.

Mortimer is the partnership’s custodian of standards, a responsibility he discharges by finding most people below them. He brings a firm belief in breeding, an exacting regard for money, and very little interest in your explanation.

Where Randolph sees a fascinating experiment, Mortimer sees an avoidable disruption to a perfectly satisfactory social order. He is especially suspicious of novel ideas, uninvited visitors, and expenses incurred by his brother.

His approach to governance is refreshingly direct: he has considered the matter, he objects, and he expects that to be sufficient.

Particular concern: The advantages of heredity
Preferred outcome: Randolph being wrong
Availability: You will be informed.

TRADING PLACES · 1983 RALPH BELLAMY

PARTNER 02

Senior partner · Capital & human nature

Randolph Duke

A theory is considerably more persuasive when one can afford to test it.

Randolph regards the world as a series of interesting propositions, most of which can be investigated at somebody else’s inconvenience. His particular interests are capital, circumstance, and the pleasing discovery that his brother may be wrong.

At the partnership, he supplies the expansive vision. He sees potential where others see a stranger in the wrong room, although his enthusiasm for social mobility is best understood as an intellectual hobby.

He welcomes a reasoned discussion, provided the reasoning arrives at a conclusion he has already selected.

Particular concern: The influence of circumstance
Preferred outcome: Being proved correct
Availability: After luncheon. In theory.

SELECTED ASSOCIATIONS

Those who have come
to our attention.

Not all were invited.
Several proved rather difficult to dismiss.

TRADING PLACES · 1983 DAN AYKROYD

FILE 03

The impeccably introduced

Louis Winthorpe III

A brokerage executive with the education, wardrobe, and numbered name one expects. Louis understands the importance of the correct club and the correct fork. His eventual ability to manage without either was, frankly, an unwelcome surprise.

A distinguished résumé. A complicated personnel file.

TRADING PLACES · 1983 EDDIE MURPHY

FILE 04

The unconventional appointment

Billy Ray Valentine

Billy Ray arrived without the usual credentials and proceeded to demonstrate an inconvenient talent for reading people. His appreciation of human behavior proved alarmingly transferable to the markets. We prefer to describe this as a recruitment success.

An instinct for the room. Especially this one.

TRADING PLACES · 1983 DENHOLM ELLIOTT

FILE 05

The gentleman behind the gentlemen

Coleman

Winthorpe’s butler possesses the discretion, composure, and practical competence that expensive households tend to mistake for furniture. Coleman notices rather more than he announces. This is admirable in principle and occasionally troublesome in practice.

Everything in its place. Including, eventually, his loyalties.

TRADING PLACES · 1983 JAMIE LEE CURTIS

FILE 06

The independent interest

Ophelia

An independent woman with savings, a plan, and an unusually accurate assessment of the men around her. Her assistance to Winthorpe was practical, decisive, and entirely outside our supervision. We find the last point particularly difficult to admire.

Her own capital. Her own terms. How very inconvenient.

Character profiles, titles, and pronouncements are original satire inspired by Trading Places. The associates are drawn from the film’s wider circle; inclusion should not be mistaken for employment. Or approval. The Hollywood particulars ↗

THE FAMILY LEDGER

The family
was here first.

The Duke name has occupied the better end of the table for so long that we have come to regard the other end as a clerical matter.

Our dynasties have ruled financial kingdoms from London and Geneva to New York and Hong Kong. Markets have opened, empires have wavered, and governments have sought reassurance. The family has continued to lunch at one.

In Philadelphia, the portraits of our forebears look down upon the partners’ office, much as they looked down upon everyone in life. Their legacy survives in our ledgers, our silver, and our profound reluctance to explain ourselves.

Randolph concerns himself with the grand questions of capital and human nature. Mortimer concerns himself with why you are still standing in the doorway. Between them, remarkably little escapes judgment.

The 1983 experiment involving Messrs. Winthorpe and Valentine remains filed under “personnel matters.” One need not revisit every staffing decision. Especially in company.

An introduction to Duke & Duke is therefore more than a business opportunity. It is the possibility, however remote, that someone in your family has finally arrived.

The Dukes. Naturally.

An invented family history for this Trading Places parody. The grandeur is entirely our own.

THE GENTLEMAN BEHIND IT ALL

AN EXCEPTION TO THE GUEST LIST

Brian Galvan.

CREATOR. WIT. EXCELLENT COMPANY.

The Dukes inherited the name.
Someone had to build the website.

Impeccable charm.
Questionable restraint.

Brian Galvan is the gentleman responsible for this entire establishment: its polished manners, its unearned sense of importance, and the faint suggestion that your shoes have been assessed. Armed with a quick wit, considerable charm, and high-society panache, he has made being delightfully insufferable something of an art.

He created this Duke & Duke tribute to give the world of Trading Places a suitably grand address on the web. Every flourish serves a noble purpose: making you laugh while the partners pretend they are above such things.

Thank you for visiting. I hope you’ve enjoyed the mahogany, the mischief, and the wildly inflated opinion of ourselves. Your presence has been noted. Favorably, for once.
Brian GalvanYOUR HOST, WITH CONSIDERABLE PLEASURE

THE NEXT MOVE IS PRESUMABLY YOURS

You have read enough.
Now mind your introduction.

Our door is open to the possibility of being closed to you.

Request an audience