Disney at Crowd-Pleasingest

 

Does The Parent Trap's Public Still Remember?

One must by now have reached late-sixties to recall The Parent Trap first-run. Hayley Mills meanwhile is seventy-six and released her memoirs last year. Three or four decades before would have timed better, but guess she wasn’t ready then, and besides the book might benefit for waiting, just that much more wisdom to impart. I regard The Parent Trap as the best live-action film Disney made, accolade gotten out of ways now for parse to follow beyond what most would see as sensible. I’ll assume everyone knew The Parent Trap from some point or other. It is familiar for Disney profaning the brand with remakes plus sequels to the remakes. They really eat their young there, the old as well, especially the old. There was a DVD of PT ’61 with lush extras, while a recent Blu-Ray has none. Everyone but H. Mills is gone now, Joanna Barnes last of adult principals out. The Parent Trap ran a startling 129 minutes, but few of us in 1961 were bored, possibly a first occasion where a film had my undivided attention, more so at least than Konga. The theatre rocked with laughter as one assumes they do not anymore. We went home and rigged an older cousin’s room with string and mucky stuff that fell when he opened the door, so maybe movies were a bad influence after all. The Parent Trap does not weary as is case with much of other Disney, it being surprisingly adult for comedy starring a kid, rather “two” kids with one playing both. People smoke and drink here, condition of life among those who could afford vices but depicted little enough on today screens for The Parent Trap to seem almost radical.

The concept would date, mostly for domestic arrangement where couples split and a child or children never see a parent again as part of divorce terms, unaware a sibling even exists. The notion sold in 1961, though The Parent Trap being more serious than farce obliges us to look closer at what seems a cruel arrangement as entered into by parents Maureen O’Hara and Brian Keith. Did Sharon and Susan take out separation issues on Mom-Dad after the glow of latter’s remarriage wore off? Today’s Facebook or apps more sinister would bring lost twins to earth soon enough, but ’61 was a time when pen-palling was still best/only means of staying current re anyone’s status or condition. I suspect The Parent Trap’s would be a narrative difficult for youngsters now to make sense of. Idea of being packed off to camp was associated more with those who had means to manage it. We’re given to understand that Sharon and Susan come of privileged background, parents blessed with old (Mom) and new (Dad) money, though not told how “Mitch Evers” came by his wealth. Estranged wife “Margaret Mckendrick” thinks enough of her Boston family name to see that daughter Sharon adopts it, differing surnames enabling plot device of the girls meeting at “Camp Inch” but not realizing they are sisters. There was enough complexity at play here for me to wonder how clear the set-up was for my seven-year-old self, though I don’t recall confusion at the time.

How much did children enjoy summer camp in those days? I attended one for summer 1967, don’t recall if it was for week’s duration, or more. The whole experience is more-less a blank, though not an ordeal. Expectation going in saw “Camp Susan Barber Jones” (gone now) as much like Camp Inch, which it would be in essential ways. We got hot dogs, baked beans, and ice cream in little cups. There were activities, some of which I ducked for quiet reading with all three issues of Monster Mania packed along. Camp Inch seems the more idyllic in hindsight. They had mischief and conflict, if no boys on site. When did camps go co-ed, or did they ever? Marjorie Morningstar in 1958 made it clear that sneaking across the lake to visit male campers would lead to despoilage. Camp Inch arranges a dance with boy guests, Annette on shellac singing Let’s Get Together for accompany. Off-track but brief inquiry: Would Disney have entrusted The Parent Trap to Annette? I think not. Part reason The Parent Trap got made was Hayley Mills being actress enough, at fourteen, to manage it. She was the realest deal of talent discoveries Disney made.

We were startled when Sharon and confederates scissored the back of Susan’s dress to reveal underpants beneath, getting the view along with stunned partiers. Imagine if they had done that with Annette. PCA authority would surely have closed Walt’s shop down, then taken a harder look at Moon Pilot and all else of what he was up to. Daring still with near-as-dishy Hayley, who I’m informed was intense crush-bait for age group somewhat past my own in 1961. Slapstick reigns at Camp Inch, “Miss Inch” presumed owner of the acreage getting three-layer face-full of cake with icing, a moment writer-director David Swift wanted to excise till Disney saw it and demurred, “It will be the biggest laugh in the picture,” and so it was. Mills separates the personalities with aplomb, Sharon knowing who Gilbert and Sullivan were while Susan does not, opposite being case where reference is to Rick Nelson. We are given to understand that Sharon was spared dubious benefits of the popular culture by her high-born Boston family (would that include Walt Disney movies?). I’ve been enriched these sixty years by knowing Gilbert and Sullivan did not get along, if little else about them. Also learned from The Parent Trap what “Coventry” meant. Who says films were a waste of time? Sharon and Susan snack on Fig Newtons. Does anybody still? I haven’t had one since The Parent Trap came out. Proof you’re seeing a good picture is when it inspires you to go out and get food the cast is eating. Best of recreation at Camp Inch is spotting the double for Hayley Mills, which Blu-Ray makes easier. I found at least two instances where she is full-face visible, and likely there are more so far eluding me.

Annette and Tommy Sands Perform the Title Song for a Disneyland Episode

Maureen O’Hara was promised star billing. Her agent memorialized the deal with Walt Disney. She held out for $75K against WD effort to pull her down, got the desired figure. Shock and surprise came when credits/publicity read “Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap … starring Maureen O’Hara.” Lawsuits were threatened, Guild action pursued, the case, remembered O’Hara, being open/shut. Disney sent word for the actress and counsel “to go screw ourselves.” Days before battle, the threat was made explicit, “Sue me and I’ll destroy you.” O’Hara knew that he could, and so left Disney alone and took the bitter pill. She told all this in her book, published in 2004. A postscript was O’Hara’s agent meeting Disney during latter’s final illness in 1966, one of treating physicians the agent’s brother. When told the woman represented Maureen O’Hara, Walt “mustered enough strength to sit up in his bed and force out his reply: “That bitch.” Don’t know about others, but I adore “Dark Prince” tales on Disney, him human after all, intent on having his way and using all of muscle, considerable by 1961, to get it. Besides all that, billing Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills above the title was just too natural and irresistible a scheme to let pass, risk of being sued more than worth taking. What is that expression? … better to apologize after than ask permission before? I wonder what Maureen would have said had Walt offered her, say, a $10K sweetener pre-release to waive objections. Did such an idea even occur to him?

Heavies Cunning Enough To Win Give Edge to The Parent Trap

1961 was still a time when good parents social-drank at home while their children meekly had ginger ale. The first photo Sharon sees of her father has him posed with a cigarette. “Reverend Mosley” (Leo G. Carroll), offered refreshment, opts for “bourbon … a double … on the rocks.” Fortune hunting Vicki Robinson (Joanna Barnes) has smokes and a lighter always handy. The Parent Trap unknowingly sent signals that would resonate by 1968 when the feature was reissued, youth by then calling elders out for banning recreational drugs while they abused alcohol and nicotine. Hypocrisy, that’s what it was!, but who thought of using The Parent Trap as a weapon against the guilty generation? Besides, Susan and Sharon don’t object, or seem to notice. Susan likes that her grandfather (Charles Ruggles) smells of “tobacco and peppermint,” while Sharon all but acts as bartender for Dad. The girls serve wine for a dinner they prepare which will hopefully reunite their divorced parents. David Swift wrote and directed The Parent Trap, my impression that he took a more grown-up slant than was Disney policy before. Did Walt note this after the fact, or did they discuss and agree in advance? Swift said in later interviews that the boss left him pretty much to his own devices during filming. Sex gets piquant reference, Susan asking her mother how serious she should be about a boy met at camp, to which Mom cancels appointments for the day so that she and daughter can have a “talk.” Rugged Mitch is thrown by what appears to be Sharon inquiring about facts of life, till reassured that “I’ve known all about that for simply years.” Such talk among Disney characters was bold lift from safe marionettes they formerly were, The Parent Trap seeming to promise fresh avenues that alas would not be explored further.

She's At It Again ... Maureen More Scary Than Stimulating

Of reality to lend tang, there is the would-be marriage partner for Mitch who is less comical prop than a determined opponent who, in league with her mother, plans to trim a future husband (“Think of California and that wonderful community property law”), then ship Sharon to a “Swiss boarding school.” This is combat engaged by two who are experienced and formidable, kept but barely in check by a pair of thirteen-year-old girls. Only assurance we have of the twins’ ultimate victory is knowing audience expectation must and will be served. Consolation for would-be wife "Vicki" comes of a hard slap she’ll give one of the Hayleys upon finality of defeat. The Parent Trap resolves several conflicts with violence. As if to remind us of The Quiet Man, O’Hara punches Brian Keith in the eye and leaves a wound too realistic to enjoy for comedy, a disturbing visual Disney relied upon for both the trailer and key poster art. The Parent Trap’s concept was complex enough to need explaining in some depth by previews plus a long segment on an episode of Disneyland that pretty much gave the game away. Disney product had to sell itself by ultra-shorthand, like “Wilby turns into a sheepdog” for The Shaggy Dog, or “The Goo That Flew” for The Absent-Minded Professor. The Parent Trap taking an estimated $9.3 million in domestic rentals must have come as pleasing surprise for Buena Vista merchandisers uncertain that the story’s appeal could be communicated to would-be customers.

UPDATE: 9/6/2022 --- Donald Benson inquired as to whether Donald and the Wheel went out generally with The Parent Trap as an added featurette. Below is evidence from the 1961 pressbook suggesting it did.