Trapped Twice

Walt Disney first produced The Parent Trap, starring Hayley Mills, in 1961. The film was Mills’s 2nd film for the studio after she had previously appeared in Pollyanna (1960), where she acted under “Parent Trap,” director David Swift and won the Academy Award for Best Juvenile Performance by an Actress in Leading Role, being the last recipient of that award. 37 years later, Nancy Meyers, and former husband Charles Shyer, re-adapted The Parent Trap for Disney, starring a then-unknown Lindsay Lohan in 1998. (Lohan beat out Mara Wilson and an unknown Scarlett Johannsson for the role.) Both films have roughly the same plot line: two pre-teen identical twin girls discover they are sisters and decide to set a trap in order to get their divorced parents back together. Besides sharing a plot, there are both intriguing similarities and differences between the films as well that doesn't exactly meet the eye.

In the 1961 version, one of the sisters, Sharon, brings the mother, Maggie (played by Maureen O’Hara) from Boston, Massachusetts, out to Monterrey, California where the other sister, Susan and the Dad, Mitch (played by Brian Keith), live. When Mitch and Maggie are reunited, they feel very resentful of one another, and the fact that Mitch is engaged to a Vicky Robinson, doesn’t make it any less awkward. Ultimately, Mitch and Maggie discover that they are still in love, when Vicky’s true nature is revealed in the camping trip scene in the film. Mitch discovers that she is, in fact, a gold digger, who is marrying him for his money (definitely not for love), and he remarries Maggie, and everyone is happy in the end.

The 1998 version is more modernized. Just like before, the Dad, Nick (played by Dennis Quaid) lives in California and is engaged to be married (to Meredith Blake, played by Elaine Hendrix). One of the sisters, Hallie, brings the mother, Elizabeth (played by Natasha Richardson), to Napa, California where he and the other sister, Annie live. However, what makes the 1998 version very different is that Elizabeth lives in London, England, rather than Boston and they are reunited at the Stafford Hotel in San Francisco, rather than Nick’s house. When Nick and Elizabeth are reunited in the film, they do experience similar awkwardness just like Mitch and Maggie in the 1961 version, but they are actually quite happy to see each other and do not feel resentment. Instead fear blinds them from the idea of reuniting, because they’re both afraid that if they get back together, it just won’t work out. When Nick finally discovers Meredith’s true nature, he and Elizabeth both find they don’t need to be afraid.

In both versions of “Parent Trap,” each parents have servants who work for them in their households. In the 1961 film, the servants just do their job and have no real involvement in the story whatsoever. In the 1998 film, Nick’s housekeeper, Chessy, and Elizabeth’s butler, Martin, meet, fall in love, and get engaged to be married at the end of the movie.

In the 1998 film, Lindsay Lohan plays Hallie Parker and Annie James. Both twins are named after Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyers real-life daughters who both have bit parts in the movie. (Both girls have had bit parts in the parents’ other films as well.)

Joanna Barnes played Vicky Robinson in the 1961 film. When the 1998 film was in-production, Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer asked her to play Meredith Blake’s mom, Vicky Blake, in the film. It is ironic that both of Barnes’s character names in the films were the same in both movies. And in the 1998 film, she called Lindsay Lohan “pet,” just like her mother in the 1961 film called Hayley Mills “pet.” It’s very likely that Barnes was basically playing the exact same character in both movies. 

Both films of “The Parent Trap,” did exceptionally well for Disney. The 1961 adaptation received 2 Academy Award Nominations and spawned 3 television sequels. While the 1998 adaptation received no major award nominations, it was positively received by critics and the public and Lindsay Lohan did go on to make several other films for Disney, including Freaky Friday (2003) (which, just like her first Disney film was based on an earlier film of the same name, which starred Jodie Foster), Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004) and Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005). She also made 2 Disney Channel films, Life-Size (2000) and Get a Clue (2002).

Tom and Meg: Romance in Movies

Film studios have, of course, cast dozens and dozens of pairs of actors as “couples” in both dramatic films and romantic comedies. For the most part, the pairs are used only once, but on occasion the pairs are reunited for different movies (i.e. Bogie and Bacall, Hepburn & Tracy, etc.). Sometimes the actors’ first pairing is a hit, and they have good chemistry, but there’s likely no pair with as much success as Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, and their four onscreen appearances.

Having won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the romantic comedy, Moonstruck (1987), John Patrick Shanley cast Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in his directorial debut, Joe Versus the Volcano (1990). The film did only moderately well with critics, audiences, and finances, but despite that, writer/director Nora Ephron immediately saw the chemistry in Hanks and Ryan being together on-screen, and she cast them in her next film at the time, Sleepless in Seattle (1993). (Ephron had previously written and received an Oscar Nomination for Best Original Screenplay for When Harry Met Sally (1989), which also starred Meg Ryan. She received another nomination for “Sleepless.” Ephron also cast Tom Hanks’s real spouse, Rita Wilson, as his sister, Suzy in “Sleepless.”) Five years after “Sleepless,” Nora Ephron reunited Hanks and Ryan for a 3rd time in You’ve Got Mail (1998). (In both “Volcano,” and “Mail,” Tom Hanks’s character’s first name was Joe.) Recently, Meg Ryan, herself made her directorial debut with the indie drama, Ithaca (2016), which she also starred in and was paired with Hanks and her real son, Jack Quaid. Both Hanks and Ryan became close on “Volcano” and have remained good friends.

In addition to their four films together, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan both have been in a number of Disney-produced/distributed films both for the Disney label as well as other Disney-owned companies like Touchstone and Miramax.

Tom Hanks made his Disney debut in Touchstone Pictures’s fantasy/romantic comedy Splash (1984). (Because “Splash” was a hit for the studio, it ignited production on The Little Mermaid (1989)). Next, he starred in Touchstone’s Turner & Hooch (1989). Following that, he was hired by the Pixar Studios to provide the voice Woody in Pixar’s first collaboration with the Disney Studios, Toy Story (1995). He reprised the character for Toy Story 2 (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010), each of the Toy Story Toon Shorts (2011-) and television spin-offs, i.e. Toy Story of Terror (2013) and Toy Story That Time Forgot (2014), and is currently set to reprise the character yet again for the upcoming sequel, Toy Story 4, set to be released in 2018. In between the “Toy Story,” theatrical sequels, Tom Hanks starred in the Coen Bros. film, The Ladykillers (2004), which was also produced by Touchstone Pictures. And After voicing Woody for the 3rd time, Hanks portrayed Walt Disney himself in the “Mary Poppins,” biopic, Saving Mr. Banks (2013). Hanks’s most recent Disney film was Bridge of Spies (2015).

Meg Ryan made her Disney debut starring in the ABC original series Wildside (1985). Next, she starred opposite future husband Dennis Quaid in Touchstone’s D.O.A. (1988). She also made Touchstone’s When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) starring opposite Andy Garcia and Mae Whitman, who is Disney’s current voice for the Tinker Bell movie series (2008-). In 1997, Ryan lent her voice to 20th Century Fox’s animated movie-musical, Anastasia, in which she was under the direction of former Disney animators, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. In 2001, she was paired Hugh Jackman in Miramax’s (then-owned by Disney) Kate & Leopold (2001).

The chemistry that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have in each of their movies has continued to entertain the world for nearly 30 years now. One might characterize Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as a “modern Rock Hudson and Doris Day.” (Like Hanks and Ryan, Hudson and Day were good friends, and made three romantic comedies together, Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), and Send Me No Flowers (1964)). Hanks and Ryan make it look easy, as real-life friendship appears to help their on-screen romance seem more believable and entertaining. Had they not befriended one another on “Joe Versus the Volcano,” they more than likely, never would have made “Sleepless in Seattle,” “You’ve Got Mail,” or “Ithaca,” which continue to entertain their fans!

The Xerox Orthodox

The Xerox Process was invented at the Walt Disney Studios in 1959. Around that time, every studio in the motion picture industry was having to modernize their styles of filming because of how much cultures around the world were changing at that time. All the gaudy, colorful movie-musicals that they had produced in previous decades had lost their touch with film audiences. The Disney Studios were no exception. They released Sleeping Beauty on January 29th, 1959, and it unfortunately turned out to be a flop. At that point, they considered closing down the entire studio, something they also considered 10 years earlier before Cinderella (1950). When “Beauty,” flopped they had to fire 5% of their employees, and they were in desperate need of a film that could be a hit for the studio. That hit turned out to be 101 Dalmatians (1961), which was the first film produced by the studio completely on “ the Xerox Process” and that played a huge role in making “Dalmatians,” so successful.

This process was invented by Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney’s long-term business partner who was “in charge of special processes at the studio.” He invented a Xerox camera that transferred drawings by animators directly to animation cels. It excluded the “inking” process (painting each cel) thus saving time and money while maintaining the spontaneity of the penciled elements. However, because of its limitations the camera was not able deviate from a black scratchy outline and lacked the fine lavish quality of hand inking. When “Dalmatians” was released, it earned the studio back all the money they had lost on “Sleeping Beauty.” The Xerox Process continued to be used on every film that the studio produced, even after Walt’s death, from The Jungle Book (1967) and The Aristocats (1970) all the way to The Fox and the Hound (1981). 

In the 1980s, computer animation was first beginning to make its way into the Hollywood limelight. At that time, the Disney Studios invented the Computer Animation Production System, or CAPS, for short. CAPS allowed them to use computer generated imagery for special sequences in their movies, while the rest of the movie would maintain the Xerox style. It was first applied to The Black Cauldron (1985), then to The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and The Lion King (1994). It was also applied to Pocahontas (1995) but with the triumphant success of Toy Story (1995), the very first film produced completely with computer animation, CAPS began to decline. CAPS was applied to every animated film that Disney produced from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) to Home On the Range (2004), but has since then been shut down and disassembled and with the success of films like Frozen (2013) and Zootopia (2016). It is unlikely that CAPS or Xerox will ever make a return to the big screen. (Disney’s more recent hand-drawn animated films, i.e. The Princess and the Frog (2009) and Winnie the Pooh (2011) were produced with more updated version of CAPS entitled “Toon Boom Harmony” computer software.)

Walt Disney Animation has progressed a great deal since Walt was alive. From the Xerox Process, to CAPS, to complete CGI. Today, the CAPS and complete CGI films might resonate with us as a film audience better than the Xerox films, but if Xerox hadn’t been invented, CAPS and complete CGI more than likely never would have come along. The Xerox process paved the way for filming styles we see in animated movies today, so it deserves every movie lover’s respect.  

As They Wish

October 9th, 2017, will mark 30 years since Rob Reiner’s Oscar-nominated, cult-classic film, The Princess Bride was released. There a great deal of reasons of why “The Princess Bride,” is a special film. It features a heartwarming story-and for its fans-a great deal of quotable dialogue from screenwriter William Goldman, (who also wrote the original book). Plus each of the characters within the story are brought to life by the wonderful talents of a star-studded. Did you happen to know that many of the film’s stars went on to lend their voices to Disney Animation?

Wallace Shawn, who played Vizzini in “Princess Bride,” provided the voice of Rex the Dinosaur in the Toy Story Trilogy, Principal Mazur in A Goofy Movie (1995), and Principal Crosby Strickler in Teacher’s Pet the television series (2000-2005) and the movie (2004). He also voiced Bob’s irritating boss, Mr. Gilbert Huph, in The Incredibles (2004), and Billy in the direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud (1997), Air Buddies (2006). Shawn also had a small part in The Haunted Mansion (2003), based on the Disney Park attraction of the same name. Shawn had one of “Princess Bride’s” most quotable lines with “Inconceivable!” Due to a fear of heights, he was very scared to shoot the “Cliffs of Insanity” scene in the film, but Andre the Giant assured him that he would take care of him, and his fear lessened as a result. 

Billy Crystal, who played Miracle Max in the film, voiced Mike Wazowski in Monsters, Inc. (2001) and its prequel, Monsters University (2013). Crystal was reunited with Rob Reiner for his next film after “Princess Bride,” released 2 years later, When Harry Met Sally (1989). During the filming of the “Miracle Max” scene in the film, Crystal was so hilarious and made everyone laugh so hard, that Reiner had to leave the set and co-star Mandy Patinkin, (who played Inigo Montoya) bruised a rib, trying to withhold his laughter.

Carol Kane, who played Miracle Max’s wife Valerie, lent her voice to many Disney Channel television shows. She provided the voices of Brawnhilda in Aladdin (1994-1995), Nana Shapiro in Phineas and Ferb (2007-2015), and the Sea Witch in Jake and the Neverland Pirates (2011-present). She also had small parts in the live-action Disney films, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004) and The Pacifier (2005). Aside from her film career, in 2006, she permanently took over the role of Madame Morrible in the musical Wicked on Broadway, succeeding Rue McClanahan who reprised the show’s original, Carole Shelley. Prior to that, she originated the role in Wicked’s 1st National Tour (which I got to see in Dallas!)

Chris Sarandon, who portrayed Prince Humperdink in “Princess Bride,” provided the speaking voice of Jack Skellington in Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). He shared the role with Danny Elfman, who provided Jack’s singing voice. (Elfman also scored and wrote the songs “Nightmare Before Christmas,” and has written material for the majority of all of Tim Burton’s movies). Chris Sarandon brought his children to the set of the film because they had heard that their father was starring opposite a large giant, and when his son took one look at Andre the Giant he screamed at the top of his lungs and ran away as a result. Cary Elwes who played Westley and Fred Savage who played the Grandson in the film have also done voice work for Disney.

We might remember each of these people as their characters from “Princess Bride,” better than as the cartoon characters they voiced for Disney, though their roles for Disney did give more versatility to their careers. Some of them were even fortunate enough to receive Oscar nominations in their careers, including Carol Kane, Chris Sarandon and Peter Falk. (Kane: Best Actress in Hester Street (1975), Sarandon: Best Supporting Actor in Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and Falk: Best Supporting Actor in Murder, Inc. (1960) and Best Supporting Actor in Pocketful of Miracles (1961)). But it was thanks to their acting, William Goldman’s beautiful words, and Rob Reiner’s direction (and co-production with Andrew Schienman) that “The Princess Bride,” became the classic that it remains to this day!