DescriptionHayley Mills, Special Academy Award(R) winner for 1960’s POLLLYANNA, lights up the screen in Disney’s fondly remembered release of THE PARENT TRAP. Mills stars as Susan and Sharon, identical twins separated at birth. Neither twin knows the other exists until a simple twist of fate finds them at the same summer camp. Then, realizing who they are, they plan a little twist of their own. They switch places with high hopes of getting their parents back together. This delightful . . . More >>
This movie is based upon Erich Kästner’s Das doppelte Lottchen. Whereas there the father is a composer and conductor, and the mother a financially struggling picture editor at a magazine, in this movie the father is a well-to-do farmer, and the mother a scion of the Boston aristocracy. Not just wholesome American, but very upperclass America. So the influences of the parents in the original (the genial, but somewhat child-neglectful atmosphere in the father’s Vienna apartment, and the mother’s financial struggle that has turned her daughter into a little edition of a careful adult) are missing. So there isn’t any depth in the movie. In the 1998 parent trap, the constellation is a little bit more interesting because of the juxtaposition of British rich and Californian-American rich with the children being somewhat typical of their background.
Moreover, Hayley Mills simply lacks charme, and Maureen O’Hara and Brian Keith have so little chemistry that it is simply not conceivable that they both should still love each other. Again, Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson do much better in that department.
So, on the whole it is interesting as the first American adaption, but the 1998 one is the enjoyable American adaption. (This review only concerns the first movie on the dvd. )
Rating: 2 / 5
Beware of “free shipping” take it to mean super slow delivery. I ordered this dvd and it was in stock. Ordered 2/5 My order was not even filled until 2/11 and I did not rec. until 2/19. Free shipping is no longer worth using. I might as well go to brick and mortar store and buy this item. No cost savings and shipping is no longer convenient. Amazon holds your items hostage for a week before shipping.
Love-love love the Parent Trap
Rating: 4 / 5
Very happy with the product and timely receiving of it.
Rating: 5 / 5
Although we loved the original Parent Trap, Parent Trap II doesn’t come close to the quality of the first. Viewing once is tolerable, but it isn’t one of those we’d like to watch over and over.
Rating: 3 / 5
Ugh,
I loved the first one. . . a childhood favorite. . .
The second is really pretty bad. Acting is bad, lines are bad, too much pop culture referencing the 80s icons. . .
Buy the original without the sequel. . .
Rating: 2 / 5