Daily Dialogue — November 8, 2017

Randolph Duke: [Valentine overhears the Dukes talking in the bathroom] Pay up, Mortimer. I’ve won the bet.
Mortimer Duke: Here, one dollar.
Randolph Duke: [chuckling] We took a perfectly useless psychopath like Valentine, and turned him into a successful executive. And during the same time, we turned an honest, hard-working man into a violently, deranged, would-be killer!

They laugh.

Randolph Duke: Now, what are we going to do about taking Winthorpe back and returning Valentine to the ghetto?
Mortimer Duke: I don’t want Winthorpe back, after what he’s done.
Randolph Duke: You mean, keep Valentine on as managing director?
Mortimer Duke: Do you really believe I would have a nigger run our family business, Randolph?
Mortimer Duke: [Valentine’s eyes widen with outrage] Of course not. Neither would I.

— Trading Places (1983), written by Timothy Harris, Herschel Weingrod

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Competition [Non-Sports], suggested by Denise Garcia who also recommended today’s movie.

Trivia: The Duke brothers’ manipulation of Louis and Billy Ray’s fates is similar to God and Satan’s bet in the Book of Job in the Old Testament. God presents Job as a good example of a righteous man, but Satan says he is only faithful to God, because God has rewarded him. To test his faith, God agrees to let Satan take away all of his friends and riches. The climax, in which Louis and Billy Ray take their revenge by using false information to trick the brothers into losing money at the stock exchange, is not unlike how Edmond Dantès take his revenge on Danglars in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

Dialogue On Dialogue: The truth is revealed — conveniently — in this confession by the Duke brothers.