It's no coincidence that two of Eddie Murphy's best comedies - Trading Places and Coming to America - were directed by John Landis, the man behind The Blues Brothers, Animal House and the first modern-day horror-comedy infusion, An American Werewolf in London.

Landis, a lifelong film buff, understands how 'old time' comedy works and both Places and America tell classical stories ( The Prince and the Pauper and Cinderella). Any other director might have tried to hip it up, but Landis didn't - and that's one of the reasons the two movies are still loved today.

Both movies have recently been reissued with the royal treatment, complete with documentaries that are fully detailed even without the participation of Eddie Murphy (his only appearance comes in vintage press interviews). In the clips from the set of Trading Places, you can see how Murphy's playful rapport with Landis disappears just five years later, during Coming to America, after Murphy skyrocketed to superstardom with the Beverly Hills Cop franchise.

The two had such trouble collaborating during this period that this quote, perhaps apocryphal, was attributed to Murphy: "Vic Morrow (an actor beheaded on Landis' segment of Twilight Zone: the Movie in 1983) has a better chance of working with him again than I do."

Of course, Hollywood's the town where money talks, and the duo was packaged together for the lamentable Beverly Hills Cop III.

Landis, not without his share of misses (stay away from all of his sequels, from the aforementioned BHC III to the lacklustre Blues Brothers 2000), has also directed a number of films that are due to be rediscovered, particularly 1985's Into the Night, where Jeff Goldblum stars as a cuckolded aerospace engineer whose humdrum approach to life continues even after he meets his feisty match in Michelle Pfeiffer.

Landis is equally adept at the farce, as proved by 1991's Oscar, which showcased Sylvester Stallone as a prohibition-era mobster trying to go straight. Strong supporting work from Peter Riegert and Tim Curry make this film worth a second view.

One sure way to identify a John Landis picture is via his two trademarks. The phrase "See you next Wednesday," appears somewhere in most Landis movies (it was the name of the first screenplay he wrote), and he also likes to feature other directors in brief cameos. For example, Don Siegel and Roger Vadim appeared in Into the Night, and Ray Harryhausen and Sam Raimi had parts in Spies Like Us.

Landis continued the trend in the Canadian-lensed film The Stupids, with Atom Egoyan and Norman Jewison both getting some screen time.

Landis' last big studio film was in 1998, but he has continued to work in documentaries and contributed two episodes to the Masters of Horror series. Family, his latest MOH entry, stars George Wendt as a Norman Bates-like psychopath who quietly goes on a killing rampage, and the episode proved that Landis can still deftly combine black humour with terror.

After years of subpar movies, Eddie Murphy would do well to team up with the director once again.

Upcoming releases
July 3 - Funny Ha Ha; Driving Lessons; A Room With a View: Two-Disc Edition; Eureka Season 1; Stephen King DVD Collector Set.

Amanda Stefaniuk is a freelance writer who literally grew up in a video store.