Hayley Mills Times Two in "The Parent Trap"

Following the delightful Pollyanna (1960), Hayley Mills and writer-director David Swift teamed up again for The Parent Trap, Disney’s best live-action comedy. The gimmick of having Hayley play twins was achieved through then-innovative use of traveling mattes and split screens. It works amazingly well, but the film’s enduring appeal has nothing to do with its clever special effects. The Parent Trap retains its popularity because if its ability to function as a smart, romantic comedy (for adults) and an enjoyable children’s film (in which the teen protagonists outwit their elders).  

The story begins at Camp Inch with 13-years-olds Susan Evers and Sharon McKendrick discovering they’re twins separated at an early age when their parents divorced. Determined to reunite their mother (Maureen O’Hara) and father (Brian Keith), the girls trade places. Their scheme encounters a major obstacle, however, when Sharon learns that Dad plans to marry a young, gold-digging socialite (Joanna Barnes). 

Brian Keith and Maureen O'Hara.

It’s a simple framework that allows the winning performances and sharply written script to shine. Brian Keith unselfishly plays straight man while Hayley and Maureen O’Hara get most of the funny scenes. Still, they’re almost upstaged by supporting players Joanna Barnes and Leo G. Carroll, who each deliver some of the film’s best lines. After talking sweetly about Sharon in front of her father, Joanna Barnes’ character confides to her mother: “First change I make in that household is off she goes to a boarding school in Switzerland.” As a whimsical priest charmed by Maureen O’Hara’s ex-wife, Leo G. Carroll absentmindedly remarks to the new fiancée and her mother: “Delightful, charming woman…it’s amazing how he let her slip away from him.”

The film’s breezy nature and charm mask two major flaws in its premise. First, how could any parents be so cruel as to separate twin sisters—and never even tell them about one another? Secondly, it’s obvious that the parents are still very much in love, so why did they split up in the first place? Since any answers would be unsatisfactory, writer-director Swift wisely chooses to ignore them altogether. 

Joanna Barnes in the original.

The Disney studio produced a pleasant remake of The Parent Trap in 1998 with Lindsay Lohan as the twins (and Joanna Barnes as the mother of the fiancee she played in the original). In the 1980s, Hayley Mills reprised her roles as grown-up versions of Susan and Sharon in three made-for-cable sequels. Interestingly, Eric Kastner’s book was filmed previously as the seldom-shown British comedy Twice Upon a Time. 

Trivia fans, take note: The duet that Hayley sings with herself, “Let’s Get Together,” peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Top 40 chart in 1961. Annette Funicello and Tommy Sands recorded the title song for The Parent Trap between takes on their movie Babes in Toyland. Finally, the uncredited Susan Henning-Schutte played the other twin in the scenes where it wasn’t necessary to show Hayley’s face.