Since 1983, a battered Santa Claus has been biting a salmon hidden in his fake beard in front of the disgusted passengers of a bus and the public poised between grin and melancholy. He is former wealthy financier Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) at the height of his social descent in John Landis’ Chair for Two (1983), at the center of a $ 1 bet made by his bosses, the Randolph brothers and Duke Mortimer, who decide to give black beggar Billie Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) a fortune and ruin their protege Louis to see if he will become a criminal. For Mortimer (Don Ameche) one is born predisposed to crime, for Duke (Ralph Bellamy) what counts is the social class in which one is: an experiment of exchange of social position. Set during Christmas, inspired by Mark Twain’s novel The Rich and the Poor (1881), the comedy flourishes when the victims – the game figured out – team up to win the bag.
December 24, 2021 | 09:08
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