Movie Musings: Disney and More

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).