Produced by Walt Disney Productions, The Parent Trap was released on June 21, 1961, by Buena Vista Distribution. It grossed $25.1 million at the box office and was nominated for two Academy Awards. It was broadcast on television, and three television sequels followed the later adventures of the twins. The film was remade in 1998 with Lindsay Lohan. It was released on VHS, in digital stereo LaserDisc format (1986), and on DVD (2002). The Parent Trap was the second of six films Mills made for Disney.
Plot
Teenagers Sharon McKendrick and Susan Evers meet at a girls summer camp. Their identical appearance causes jealousy, resentment, and a rivalry in which they continually get each other into trouble and disrupt camp activities. As punishment, they must spend the remainder of the camp season rooming and dining together in isolation. They overcome their mutual dislike when they realize that they are identical twin sisters, whom their parents, Mitch and Maggie, separated upon divorcing shortly after their birth. Eager to meet the parents from whom they were separated, they decide to cut their hair identically, coach each other on their lives, and switch places.
In Boston with their mother and grandparents, Susan poses as Sharon, while Sharon goes to Mitch's California ranch as Susan. Sharon learns that Mitch is engaged to a beautiful and much younger woman, Vicky, who is interested only in Mitch’s money and intends to send Susan to boarding school after the wedding. The girls communicate by phone at night. Susan tells Sharon to break up the couple, but when that fails, Susan decides to end the charade. After a happy reunion, Maggie brings her to California. Mitch is upset by Maggie's unexpected arrival, until he learns the truth and is reunited with both daughters. Vicky is jealous of Maggie, who is staying at the ranch.
The girls scheme to reunite their parents by recreating Maggie and Mitch's first date. At first, the ex-spouses are drawn together, but then they argue over why they divorced. They make up before Maggie and Sharon are to leave the next morning, and Maggie wishes Mitch well with Vicky. To delay the return to Boston, the twins dress and act alike, so their parents cannot tell them apart. They refuse to reveal their identities unless the family takes a camping trip. Mitch and Maggie reluctantly agree, and Vicky, who loathes the outdoors, is furious. Maggie cajoles Vicky into taking her place "so that Vicky can become better acquainted with the twins."
The twins take every opportunity to exploit Vicky's hatred of camping, pulling a series of pranks on her. That night, the twins sneak into her tent and pour honey over Vicky's feet and leave a small honey trail outside the tent. Vicki awakens the following morning to find two bear cubs licking the honey off her feet to which she has a tantrum over her hatred of the outdoors and the twins. She further says all the trouble she's been through does not make marrying Mitch for his money worth it and storms off.
Back at the house, the twins apologize for their actions; Mitch accepts their apology and says they don't have to discuss the situation anymore. Maggie and Sharon prepare to return to Boston the next day, with the twins now resigned to seeing each other only during visits and shuttling back and forth between parents. Later, Mitch tells Maggie everything he misses about her and their marriage. They realize that they still love each other. The film ends with their second wedding, with Susan and Sharon as their bridesmaids.
Cast
Hayley Mills as Susan Evers and Sharon McKendrick.
The source material, Das doppelte Lottchen, was discovered by Disney's story editor Bill Dover, who recommended the studio buy it.[6]
In March 1960 Disney announced that Hayley Mills would star in His and Hers to be written and directed by David Swift. Swift and Mills had just made Pollyanna for Disney.[7] It was also known as Petticoats and Blue Jeans and was the first in a five-film contract Mills signed with Disney, to make one each summer.[8]
Maureen O'Hara signed in June.[9] She wrote in her memoirs that Disney offered her a third of her normal fee of $75,000 but that she held out for her quote and got it.[10] O'Hara said her contract gave her top billing but that Disney decided to give that to Mills; she says this caused tension with the studio and was why she never worked with Disney again.[11]
Production started in July under the title of We Belong Together and went until September.[12]
The film was shot mostly at various locales in California. The summer camp scenes were filmed at Bluff Lake Camp (then owned by the Pasadena YMCA, now by Habonim Dror's Camp Gilboa) and the family camping scenes later in the movie at Cedar Lake Camp, both 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 (21km2) ranch in Carmel and Monterey's Pebble Beach golf course. The scenes at the Monterey house were shot at the studio's Golden Oak Ranch in Placerita Canyon, where Mitch's ranch was built.[13] 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.[14] In fact, 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.
In 1962, a year after Disney adapted Das doppelte Lottchen into The Parent Trap, Cyrus Brooks translated the German book into English as Lisa and Lottie,[15] an edition still published in the United States and Canada.
In 2014, Das doppelte Lottchen was faithfully retranslated into English by Anthea Bell and republished in the United Kingdom and Australia by Pushkin Press as The Parent Trap,[16] after the hit Disney film. Then in 2020, Australian actress Ruby Rees recorded an unabridged narration of Bell's translation for Bolinda.[17]
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 and that version is sung double-tracked by Hayley Mills (Hayley's own single of the song, credited to "Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills", reached #8 on the US charts). The film's title song was performed by Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello, who were both on the studio lot shooting Babes in Toyland at the time. The campers whistle the 1914 marching song, "Colonel Bogey March", as they march through camp, mirroring the scene from The Bridge on the River Kwai.[18]
Reception
Critical
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that "it should be most appealing to adults, as well as to children, because of the cheerfully persuasive dual performance of Hayley Mills".[19]Variety stated that the film was "absolutely predictable from the outset", but was still "a winner" thanks to the performance of Mills, who "seems to have an instinctive sense of comedy and an uncanny ability to react in just the right manner. Her contribution to the picture is virtually infinite".[20] Charles Stinson of the Los Angeles Times declared it "a comedy unusually well designed for the entire family — enough sight gags to keep the children screaming and enough clever dialogue to amuse their parents".[21]Harrison's Reports graded the film as "Very Good"[1] and Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called it "charmingly lively" even though "the terrain is familiar".[22]
The Parent Trap was initially released by Walt Disney Home Video through VHS on April 7, 1984, and on May 28, 1986, as part of Disney's "Wonderland Campaign".[34][35]
The film was released on a 2-disc special edition DVD in May 2002, as part of the Vault Disney collection, with a new digital remaster by THX.[36]
In 2005, the film was once again released in a 2-Movie Collection, which also contained the made-for-television sequel, The Parent Trap II (1986), plus the original film trailer and other bonus features.
The film was released for the first time on Blu-ray, but as a Disney Movie Club exclusive on April 24, 2018. The 1998 remake was also released on Blu-ray the same day.
Emil Erich Kästner was a German writer, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including Emil and the Detectives and Lisa and Lottie. He received the international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1960 for his autobiography Als ich ein kleiner Junge war. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in six separate years.
Maureen O'Hara was an Irish-born naturalized American actress who became successful in Hollywood from the 1940s through to the 1960s. She was a natural redhead who was known for playing passionate but sensible heroines, often in Westerns and adventure films. She worked with director John Ford and long-time friend John Wayne on numerous projects.
Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills is an English actress. The daughter of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell and younger sister of actress Juliet Mills, she began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her performance in the British crime drama film Tiger Bay (1959), the Academy Juvenile Award for Disney's Pollyanna (1960) and Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1961.
Lisa and Lottie, published in the United Kingdom and Australia as The Parent Trap, is a 1949 German children's novel by Erich Kästner. The book is about identical twin girls whose parents separated them in infancy upon divorcing, only to reunite at a summer camp years later before switching places.
The Parent Trap is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Nancy Meyers in her directorial debut, who also wrote with David Swift and Charles Shyer, who also produced. It is a remake of the 1961 film of the same name and an adaptation of Erich Kästner's 1949 German novel Lisa and Lottie.
Walter Trier was a Czech-German illustrator, best known for his work for the children's books of Erich Kästner and the covers of the magazine Lilliput.
The Parent Trap II is a 1986 American made-for-television comedy film and a sequel to Disney's 1961 film The Parent Trap and the second installment in The Parent Trap series. It premiered on the Disney Channel on July 26, 1986 as a part of the channel’s “Hayley Mills Film Festival” banner.
The Parent Trap is an American family-comedy film-series, including the original theatrical film, three made-for-television sequel movies, and a theatrical legacy sequel/soft-remake. Based on the 1949 novel Lisa and Lottie by Erich Kästner, the plot centers around identical twin sisters, who were separated at birth and rediscover each other while attending summer camp. The pair trade places upon returning home, and devise a plan to bring their family back together.
"Let's Get Together" is a song written by Robert and Richard Sherman for the 1961 Disney film The Parent Trap.
Parent Trap III is a 1989 American made-for-television comedy film and a sequel to The Parent Trap II (1986) and the third installment in The Parent Trap series. It originally aired in two parts as a presentation of The Magical World of Disney on April 9 and 16, 1989.
Parent Trap: Hawaiian Honeymoon is a 1989 American made-for-television comedy film and a sequel to Parent Trap III (1989) and the fourth and final installment in the original The Parent Trap series. It originally aired two parts as a presentation of The Magical World of Disney on November 19 and 26, 1989.
Charlie & Louise – Das doppelte Lottchen is a German children's film directed by Joseph Vilsmaier in 1994, starring Corinna Harfouch. It is a film adaptation of the 1949 novel Lisa and Lottie by Erich Kästner.
In Search of the Castaways is a 1962 American adventure film starring Maurice Chevalier and Hayley Mills in a tale about a worldwide search for a shipwrecked sea captain. The film was produced by Walt Disney Productions and directed by Robert Stevenson from a screenplay by Lowell S. Hawley, based upon Jules Verne's 1868 adventure novel Captain Grant's Children.
Hibari no komoriuta is a 1951 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Koji Shima. The movie is based on Lisa and Lottie, a 1949 novel by Erich Kästner later adapted as the 1961 film The Parent Trap.
Do Kaliyaan is a 1968 Indian Hindi-language film directed by R. Krishnan and S. Panju. The film stars Mala Sinha, Biswajeet, Mehmood, Om Prakash and Neetu Singh, credited as Baby Sonia. It is a remake of the 1965 Tamil film Kuzhandaiyum Deivamum which itself was based on the 1961 American film The Parent Trap, based on Erich Kästner's 1949 German novel Lisa and Lottie.
Kuzhandaiyum Deivamum is a 1965 Indian Tamil-language children's film directed by Krishnan–Panju. It is based on the American film The Parent Trap (1961) which in turn was based on Erich Kästner's 1949 German novel Lisa and Lottie. The film stars Jaishankar and Jamuna, with Nagesh, Sundarrajan, G. Varalakshmi, Santha, Kutty Padmini, M. S. S. Bhagayam and V. R. Thilagam in supporting roles. It tells the story of twin sisters attempting to reunite their separated parents.
Sethubandhanam is a 1974 Indian Malayalam-language film, directed by J. Sasikumar and produced by R. Somanathan. The film stars Prem Nazir, Sukumari, Jayabharathi and Adoor Bhasi in the lead roles. The film has musical score by G. Devarajan. It is a remake of Tamil movie Kuzhandaiyum Deivamum, which itself was based on the 1961 film The Parent Trap - both based on the Erich Kästner's 1949 German novel Lisa and Lottie.
Makkala Bhagya is a 1976 Indian Kannada-language film, directed by K. S. L. Swamy (Ravi) and produced by K. Vittal Kumar and K. V. Honnappa. The film stars Vishnuvardhan, Bharathi Vishnuvardhan, K. S. Ashwath and Dwarakish in the lead roles. The film has musical score by Vijaya Bhaskar. It is a remake of the Tamil movie Kuzhandaiyum Deivamum, which itself was an adaptation of the 1953 British film Twice Upon a Time and the 1961 movie The Parent Trap – both based on the Erich Kästner's 1949 German novel Lottie and Lisa.
Two Times Lotte is a 1950 West German film, directed by Josef von Báky and starring Antje Weisgerber, Peter Mosbacher, Isa, and Jutta Günther. It was made by Bavaria Film at the Emelka Studios near Munich, and its sets were designed by the art directors Robert Herlth and Willy Schatz.
Leta Manasulu is a 1966 Indian Telugu-language film directed by Krishnan–Panju and produced by A. V. Meiyappan under AVM Productions banner. The film stars Haranath, Jamuna and Kutty Padmini. It is a remake of the 1965 Tamil film Kuzhandaiyum Deivamum which itself was an adaptation of the 1961 film The Parent Trap, in turn based on Erich Kästner's 1949 German novel Lisa and Lottie. The film was released on 16 September 1966.
↑ Hopper, Hedda. (9 March 1960). "Looking at Hollywood: Hayley Mills to Play (Both) Twins in Film". Chicago Daily Tribune. p.b4.
↑ Waugh, John C. (11 October 1960). "Is Young British Actress New 'American Sweetheart'?: Hollywood Letter". The Christian Science Monitor. p.7.
↑ Thompson, Howard (25 June 1960). "PRODUCERS PUSH WAR-FILM PLANS: Levy and Mindlin Will Begin 'Longest Day' in March -- 'Terrace' to Open July 15". The New York Times. p.12.
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