Home » News » A Prince in New York 1 and 2: this nod to another Eddie Murphy’s film repeated 33 years later! – Cinema News

A Prince in New York 1 and 2: this nod to another Eddie Murphy’s film repeated 33 years later! – Cinema News

In “A Prince in New York” in 1988, Eddie Murphy gave a sympathetic nod to the comedy “An armchair for two” which had revealed it. Thirty-three years later, a new tribute is slipped into “A Prince in New York 2”. Decryption.

If King Akeem, his beautiful Lisa, his faithful Semmi and most of the characters of A Prince in New York are at the rendezvous of the sequel, available on Amazon Prime Video, two other unexpected protagonists have invited themselves, through a sympathetic wink, in A Prince in New York 2: Randolph Duke & Mortimer Duke from the movie An armchair for two! A small tribute which was already present in the first opus in 1988. Explanation.

Paramount Pictures

Randolph & Mortimer Duke in “An armchair for two”

1983. Barely a few months after a first noticed test in the buddy-movie 48 Hours alongside Nick Nolte, Eddie Murphy, revealed by the Saturday Night Live, sees his Hollywood career definitively launched by An armchair for two, a social comedy by John Landis, where he teams up with Dan Aykroyd to get revenge on Randolph & Mortimer Duke.

These two extremely wealthy brothers, as smiling as they are detestable, have indeed decided to make a strange bet around one of their young directors, white, arrogant and brilliant, and a king of resourcefulness, black, broke and brilliant. By reversing the positions of the two men (by ruining the first to replace it with the second), the Dukes intend to determine whether the winning character is revealed in any situation, or if, on the contrary, the environment influences success. . A sociological experience life-size and at the expense of our two heroes, in short, who will work together to give their money back to the Machiavellian Duke.

Paramount Pictures

Randolph & Mortimer Duke in “A Prince in New York

1988. After the worldwide success of An armchair for two ($ 90 million in revenue in the United States, more than a million spectators in France), Eddie Murphy find John Landis sure A prince in New York, who sees Akeem, heir to the throne of a wealthy African kingdom, travel to the Big Apple to find love, under the identity of a penniless student.

During a scene of a night walk in the arms of Lisa (Shari Headley) on the banks of the Hudson River, Akeem crosses two homeless, sheltered under a pile of cardboard boxes. After slipping them a (big) envelope of greenbacks, we discover the faces of the two homeless: Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche, alias Randolph & Mortimer, now ruined. In front of the silhouette of the World Trade Center, symbol of their past glory, one of the two men exclaims “Mortimer, here we go again!”, confirming that the two despicable brothers did well in another film of the tandem Murphy / Landis.

Randolph & Mortimer Duke in “A Prince in New York 2”

2021. This bundle left by Akeem seems to have indeed put the two brothers back in the saddle: it is within the framework of a job interview for a position within the prestigious company Duke & Duke that we discover Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler), hidden son of Akeem and rightful heir to the throne of Zamunda in A Prince in New York 2. During the exchange, the new boss of the place, Calvin Duke (Colin Jost), then evokes the memory of “his grandfather and his great-great-uncle”, and points to a painting on the wall.

We find with great pleasure our “dear” Randolph & Mortimer, always under the guise of Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche. Even though the two comedians both died in the early 90s, they were not forgotten by Eddie Murphy for this new celebration, 33 years later, of Zamunda, offering himself a tasty posthumous cameo that will not have escaped the connoisseurs of the cinema of the 80s.

A Prince in New York, 1988 vs 2021: Eddie Murphy and the cast then and today

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A Prince in New York, 1988 vs 2021: Eddie Murphy and the cast then and today

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