The Parent Trap (1961 film)



A Disney live-action film from 1961, starring Hayley Mills and yielded three sequels which are hard to fit into one continuity (and are pretty much forgotten about).

Twin sisters have been separated nearly at birth when their parents divorced. The year their father is considering remarrying, the sisters meet each other at summer camp. After meeting and figuring out their actual relationship, they plot to get their parents back together, a plot that involves each pretending to be the other. Hilarity Ensues.

The movie is based on a book, Das Doppelte Lottchen.


 * Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male: Mom punches Dad in the eye.
 * Considering the actress, maybe it was more Abuse Is Okay When It's the Woman Known For Slugging John Wayne on Male....
 * What he says after being punched suggests she'd done stuff like that to him when they were married: "Why do you have to get so physical? Can't even talk to you about anything, you're always trying to belt me with something." Despite the movie's attempt to make the scene cutesy, with her awkward and girlish punch, modern viewers may find the implications disturbing.
 * The remake does allude to this, when Elizabeth and Nick are reminiscing about how they broke up.
 * Always Identical Twins
 * Animated Credits Opening: With stop-motion.
 * Artistic License Music: Hayley Mills is not moving her fingers when playing Beethoven's 5th Symphony on guitar. Then on "Let's Get Together" her strumming does not match the music (in addition to not moving her fingers).
 * Butt Monkey: Vicky the fiancee.
 * Colonel Bogey March: The other girls at the camp whistle this as the twins are escorted to the Isolation Cabin.
 * Comedic Underwear Exposure: From one of the pranks during the dance, when Susan surreptitiously cuts the back off the skirt of Sharon's party dress.
 * Disneyfication: The original story was far more serious than the Disney movies -- the father was distant, the mother was a wreck, and one twin falls ill.
 * Divorce Is Temporary: The twins actively invoke this.
 * Don't Split Us Up
 * Doomed New Clothes: Susan's new dress is ruined by Sharon as part of their prank war.
 * Escalating War: The prank war between the twins.
 * First Father Wins
 * Foot Focus: The bear cubs licking honey off of Vicky's feet while they're camping.
 * Also Maggie, who is barefoot near the end of the movie and mentions that fact to Mitch after he compliments her on being a good mother. He responds by saying "I like you in your bare feet".
 * Foregone Conclusion: The opening credits tell us the story in clay animation.
 * Guess Who I'm Marrying
 * Hilarity Ensues
 * Hot Mom: Maureen O'Hara.
 * Identical Twin ID Tags
 * Info Dump: For everyone who is involved in the main plot.
 * It's a Small World After All: Lampshaded.
 * No Sympathy: One of the twins gets in trouble for having a messy cabin, even though it had obviously been sabotaged by pranksters.
 * Novelization: including a section of photos from the movie in the center of the book.
 * Now You Tell Me: A lot of characters find things out the hard way.
 * Off to Boarding School: What would have happened if the fiancee married the father.
 * One True Pairing: Established in-universe, between Maggie McKendrick and Mitch Evers -- the daughters' reason for the trap.
 * Parent Trap Plot: The Trope Namer.
 * Parent with New Paramour
 * Rich Bitch: Vicky Robinson, who was also the Gold Digger and the Child-Hater.
 * Rich in Dollars, Poor In Sense: Mitch.
 * Separated at Birth
 * Sibling Team: Once the girls discover they're sisters.
 * Solomon Divorce: One of the best-known examples.
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Sharon is a girly girl, having been raised as a child of Boston high society; Susan is the tomboy.
 * Twin Switch
 * Vinyl Shatters
 * Zany Scheme