The Parent Trap (1961)

Based on the novel Das doppelte Lottchen (tr. The Double Lottie), by Erich Kästner, first published in 1949.

Two twin adolescent sisters separated at birth (or as very young infants -- I am not sure which) meet by chance at summer camp; one had been living with their father and the other with their mother, and were unaware of each other. They hatch a plan to reunite their parents.

Apparently this was a unanimity, although I found no major critics reviewing it; I guess it is one of those films about which it is enough that you come up with the stronger version of the comment "It's only a movie", that being of course "It's only a kid's movie". By reading the summary of the novel at Wikipedia, we find some differences in plot between it and this film, the most striking as far as I'm concerned being that in the novel the two twins show considerable differences in temperament. This does not occur in the movie (even though TV Guide seems to think otherwise), and several viewers on IMDB even complained the twins were too indistinguishable. As a matter of fact, they should be, since they are genetically identical. If you are scientifically interested in the subject, I recommend this New York Times piece. This is a kid's movie with a vengeance: they successfully overrule the adults' decisions, completely changing their lives. In a way, it is also a women's movie, because women's wishes prevail over men's (even though one of them is defeated in the process). Men here just do not have a say, they are puppets of their surrounding females, either in the grownup or infantile forms. Perhaps all this should be traced to the literary author. He was a pacifist, and pacifism is the most childish of all schools of thought; it is also one of the most feminine, but of course women's minds are closer to children's (they should be too, otherwise how could they raise the little ones?). And childish doctrines have a way of contradicting themselves when put in practice. Here, for example, the pacification process occurs in two stages. The first one has the twins evolving from a warlike attitude to a reconciliation borne out of the awareness of their kinship. The second one is the parents' reuniting; this is where the contradiction sets in, since it requires a war (on the father's younger fiancee) to achieve. Perhaps the novelist (and, who knows, even the screenwriter) had a political allegory in mind, with, say, the U.S.A. at one side, the U.R.S.S. at the other, and Nazi Germany as the evil in-between.

Rating: 43