The Parent Trap (1961)
 They
cloned Pollyanna. Not really, but that was certainly the effect
Walt Disney wanted for 1961's The Parent Trap.
Young actress Hayley Mills had skyrocketed to fame the previous
year as the title character in Disney's Pollyanna, and Walt
decided to capitalise on that success by giving the girl double
billing.
As twins Sharon and Susan, Mills proved more than up to the
task, giving the spunky spark to this perennial family favourite.
Sharon McKendrick and Susan Evers first come across each other
on a trip to summer camp, where each notices the uncanny
resemblance. Taking an instant dislike to their mirror images, the
girls engage in prank warfare, culminating with a no-holds-barred
brawl/food fight.
The camp counsellors decide the best way to deal with the
situation is to force the two to spend the rest of camp together,
since they'll either learn to get along or quietly kill each other
off.
As the two start to warm up, they discover they're actually
long-lost twin sisters, separated soon after birth when their
parents divorced. The girls decide to switch roles in order to
meet the other parent: Sharon goes to California to spend time
with her father, while Susan flies out to Boston to see mother.
The switched sibs manage to pull off the scam, but trouble
arises when dad announces his impending marriage to gold-digging
Vicky Robinson. Sharon calls her sis in Boston, who tells her
mother the truth and arranges to fly both her and mother out to
spoil the wedding.
The girls' matchmaking efforts appear to fall short when mum
and dad have a fight, but on the day mother is to return to
Boston, the identically-dressed-and-coifed twins refuse to tell
which girl is which.
That battle won, Sharon and Susan insist the family (including
Vicky) go on a planned camping trip together, giving them time to
sabotage one engagement and plot another.
The split-screen effect of having both Hayleys on screen at the
same time was pulled off without a hitch, and the actress played
both parts with equal sweet and sour precociousness.
The movie was a smash, and Mills went on to star in a number of
other films for Disney. In the 1980's, a grown-up Mills reprised
her roles for a handful of TV movie sequels, and in 1998, Disney
released a remade version of the original with newcomer Lindsay
Lohan in the twin roles.
|
