This is an agreeable updating from an E. Kastner's story , it deals about two twins little girls (Hayley Mills). When they are in summer holidays and after several antics each other , discover the surprise which they are twin sisters and then they plot change characters with their different parents (Mauren O'Hara , Brian Keith) who are disjointed since the divorce and the girls have been separately raised . The father is going to marry a young woman (Joanna Barnes) and the eleven-years-old girls scheme the parents reconciliation by making impossible life of the father's bride .

The picture contains enjoyable comedy , humor , tongue-in-cheek and being pretty entertaining . This classical Disney comedy was remade in 1998 with Lindsay Lohan and previously adapted to British cinema in a movie titled : ¨Twice upon a time¨ (1954) . Hayley Mills acting is sympathetic and amusing . Hayley plays two sisters and she makes it splendidly . Hayley starred two sequels for Television (1986, 1989). Susan Henning took on the role as Hayley Mills' body double for several of the twin shots in the film , as part of her contract, she signed away her rights to be credited . 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 . Mauren O'Hara and Brian Keith are magnificent as parents in similar roles later starred by Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid . Joanna Barnes as the unpleasant fiancée is very well , in the remake she played the bride's (incarnated by Elaine Hendrix) mother . The movie will appeal to family comedy enthusiasts . Rating : Amusing and enjoyable . Well worth seeing .

... is anybody else but me disturbed by the entire premise? Two people divorce, for reasons never spoken in the film, and they literally divide the child in half ala Solomon. One baby of their identical twin girls goes to dad (Brian Keith),and the other to mom (Maureen O'Hara). Not only in the first ten odd years of their lives does neither parent ever see (you don't know if they inquire via the other parent) the other child, they deny to both children the knowledge that they have a sibling! What judge would sign off on this deal? Wouldn't grandparents intervene or try to sneak a peak at the other grandchild in all of this time? Disney seems to have created a world where none of these questions are asked and the parents are free to write up any child custody agreements they care to arrange in a vacuum.

Into this rather bizarre arrangement comes a summer camp to mess everything up. The two children end up at the same camp at the same time! Again, big screw up by the parents. One has been raised in upper crust Boston, the other on a ranch in Monterrey. Thus they have nothing in common but their looks. They cause trouble for each other with their pranks, until things escalate to the point that they are punished by being forced to live together in the same cabin in the woods. There they figure out they are sisters. So, now that they are each curious about their other parent, they decide turnabout is fair play and go back home to the parent they have never seen with each masquerading as the other.

The thing that upends their plans is that dad is getting ready to remarry. Now every synopsis I have seen describes bride-to-be Vicki as a golddigger, but let's face it. It's not like Gerry Hall is marrying Rupert Murdock here. Dad is not that rich and not that old. He could live a long time and he could go broke. It was just a plot device to get the girls to reveal their switcheroo and thus get mom to fly to California and get the parents talking again, and to have an excuse for the girls not to like their stepmother to be, whose only problem seems to be that she is just not the outdoors type to be living on a ranch. And let's face it, the girls wouldn't like their new stepmom if she was Mary Poppins because she would be busting up their dreams of a reunified family.

So how does this end? I'll let you watch and find out. I will say in the film's defense that it has a great two-tiered script with slapstick and adolescent humor for the kids and plenty of whimsy for the adults. The sentiment is genuine and not saccharine and the veterans in the cast give it plenty of gravitas, and kudos to Hayley Mills for making me forget that I wasn't looking at two different little girls. Just don't THINK too hard, because it ruins everything.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and I do prefer it over the remake. The remake was really nice too, but this has a more special place in my heart. It is a little too long however, and there are one or two moments in the film that could have been less padded such as the interlude at the summer camp.

That said, The Parent Trap is a really engaging film, it is sassy, funny and smart with an original concept. The film is really beautiful to look at too, lovely cinematography, costumes and scenery. Another nice component was the music, really tuneful and sweet and most of all memorable.

The script is funny, sharp and smart, there is some witty dialogue and also some touching parts too. The direction is equally adept and skillful, David Swift also guided Hayley Mills through her Oscar-winning turn in Pollyanna the previous year.

Then there is the acting. Hayley Mills is outstanding in the dual roles of the twins who try to reunite their divorced parents. I first encountered Mills in Tiger Bay, a very underrated film that is and she was just brilliant in it, in fact her performance in that film is one of my all-time favourite child performances. Let's not forget the other actors either, Brian Keith is fine as the father though he could have done with more material, and the stunning Maureen O'Hara is a delight as the mother. There's also Leo G.Carroll, who I am familiar with from his supporting turns in Hitchcock films like Suspicion and Spellbound, it was nice to see him again.

Overall, I liked this film very, very much. Not perfect by all means but a delight nonetheless. 8/10 Bethany Cox