The Parent Trap (1961) (2024)

The Parent Trap is a 1961 Walt Disney film. It stars Hayley Mills, Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith in a story about teenage identical twins and their divorced parents. The screenplay by the film's director David Swift was based upon the book Lottie and Lisa (Das Doppelte Lottchen) by Erich Kästner. Kastner derived his version from a Deanna Durbin film Three Smart Girls. The Parent Trap was nominated for two Academy Awards, was broadcast on television, saw three television sequels, was remade in 1998 with Lindsay Lohan, and has been released to VHS and DVD. The original film was Mills' second of six films for Disney

Plot[]

Identical twins Susan and Sharon are split up by their parents' divorce as babies, with their mother taking Sharon and their father taking Susan. Sharon and their mother, Margaret "Maggie" McKendrick (Maureen O'Hara) live in Boston in their grandparents' house and Susan lives with their father, Mitchell "Mitch" Evers (Brian Keith) in California.

At age 13, Susan and Sharon (Hayley Mills in a dual role) meet at a summer camp. Their identical appearances created rivalry, and they pull malicious pranks on each other. At a camp dance, Susan and Sharon start fighting, and ruin the event. As punishment, the camp director has them live together in an isolated cabin and eat at an isolation table until camp is over.

While getting to know each other, they soon learn they are twin sisters and that their parents divorced, with each parent taking one of them. The twins, each eager to meet the parent and get to know the parent they never knew, decide to switch places. Susan goes to Boston pretending to be Sharon to meet their mother and Sharon goes to California pretending to be Susan to meet their father without anyone suspecting anything.

After Sharon meets their father and returns home, she learns from Verbena, the housekeeper that he plans to marry a ferocious, child-hating gold digger named Vicky Robinson (Joanna Barnes), who's young enough to be their older sister. She calls Susan in Boston to tell her about Vicky, and that their mother needs to be brought to California immediately, but Susan wants more time to get to know their mother. After Mitch tells Sharon that he wants to marry Vicky, she gets hysterical, and when Vicky tries to talk to her, Sharon makes it clear that she knows her intentions. Later that night, Sharon calls Susan again to tell Susan what happened, and their grandfather picks up the phone and listens in on their conversation. Shocked, he hangs up the phone and waits for Susan on the staircase, and they talk. The next morning, Susan tells their mother and grandmother the truth about her and Sharon meeting at camp and switching places, and they're happy to see her again.

After arriving in California, the twins tell their mother about their father's wedding plans and decide to stop them. After falling into the lake, Mitch is shocked to see Maggie again, and they yell at each other. Susan and Sharon surprise him, and Sharon tells him they met at camp, and Maggie tells him that they switched places, and he's happy to see Sharon again.

Mitch and Vicky start fighting about Maggie, and after Maggie comes downstairs, she "charms" Vicky. That evening, the girls recreated their parents' first date at an Italian restaurant with a gypsy violinist. The former spouses are gradually drawn together, though they quickly start fighting again over minor things and Mitch's wedding plans to Vicky.

To delay Maggie's return to Boston with Sharon, the twins dress and talk alike so their parents are unable to tell them apart. They will reveal who is who only after everyone goes on the annual family camping trip. Mitch and Maggie reluctantly agree, but when Vicky objects to the plan, Maggie tricks her into taking her place. The girls decide to pull pranks on Vicky. That night, she spends her time swatting mosquitoes after unknowingly using sugar and water instead of insect repellent, and being awakened by two bear cubs licking the honey off her toes. Vicky screams, throws a screaming fit, and pushes Mitch into the tent and it collapses. Vicky then slaps one of the girls across the face, telling her to give her sister her half of it. Mitch finally sees Vicky for what she really is, and he defends the girls. Vicky breaks off the engagement and cancels the wedding. Later that night, Mitch and Maggie talk about their relationship and fall in love all over again, and they remarry in the final scene with the twins in the wedding party.

Cast

Hayley Mills as Susan Evers and Sharon McKendrick
Brian Keith as Mitchell "Mitch" Evers
Maureen O'Hara as Margaret "Maggie" McKendrick
Joanna Barnes as Vicky Robinson
Linda Watkins as Edna Robinson
Cathleen Nesbitt as Louise McKendrick
Charles Ruggles as Charles McKendrick
Una Merkel as Verbena
Crahan Denton as Hecky
Leo G. Carroll as Rev. Dr. Mosby
Susan Henning as Susan/Sharon double

Production Notes[]

The screenplay originally called for only a few trick photography shots of Hayley Mills in scenes with herself; the bulk of the film was to be shot using a body double. When Walt Disney saw how seamless the processed shots were, he ordered the script reconfigured to include more of the special effect. Disney also wanted Mills to appear on camera as much as possible, knowing that she was having growth spurts during filming.

The film was shot mostly at various locales in California. The summer camp scenes were filmed at Cedar Lake Camp, in the San Bernardino Mountains near the city of Big Bear Lake in Southern California. The Monterey scenes were filmed in various California locations, including millionaire Stuyvesant Fish's 5,200 acres (21 km²) ranch in Carmel, Monterey's Pebble Beach golf course. The scenes at the Monterey house were shot at studio's Golden Oak Ranch in Placerita Canyon, where Mitch's ranch was built. It was the design of this set that proved the most popular, and to this day the Walt Disney Archives receives requests for plans of the home's interior design.^{[citation needed]} Of course, there never was such a house; the set was simply various rooms built on a sound stage. Camp Inch was based on a real girls' camp called Camp Crestridge for Girls at the Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center near Asheville, North Carolina.

Musical Numbers[]

Richard and Robert Sherman provided the songs, which, besides the title song "The Parent Trap", includes "For Now, For Always", and "Let's Get Together". "Let's Get Together" (sung by Annette Funicello) is heard playing from a record player at the summer camp; the tune is reprised by the twins when they restage their parents' first date. The title song was performed by Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello, who were both on the studio lot shooting Babes in Toyland at the time.

Awards and Nominations[]

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: one for Sound by Robert O. Cook, and the other for Film Editing by Philip W. Anderson.

Subsequent Developments[]

The film was theatrically re-released in 1968. The Disney Studios produced three television sequels The Parent Trap II (1986), The Parent Trap III (1989), and The Parent Trap IV: Hawaiian Honeymoon (1989). In 1963, the ABC television sitcom The Patty Duke Show debuted using similar filming techniques in a series about teenage cousins (played by Patty Duke) with identical twin appearances but with completely different personalities. The original film was remade in 1998 starring Lindsay Lohan.

In 1965, a similar Tamil film called Kuzhandaiyum Deivamum starring Kutty Padmini released, which was later remade into Telugu as Letha Manasulu and in Hindi as Do Kaliyaan starring Neetu Singh in the double role.