Customer Reviews

The Parent Trap Two-Movie Collection (The Parent Trap / The Parent Trap II)

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Disney's THE PARENT TRAP remains one of the studio's most fondly-remembered hits. With Hayley Mills, Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith leading the perfectly-realised cast, the movie has become a favourite of generations.

In THE PARENT TRAP, Sharon and Susan discover while at summer camp that the reason why they look so similar is that they were twins, separated shortly after their parents' split! The girls resolve to reunite their feuding parents by switching places and forcing them to meet once the switch is discovered. However, the twins don't count on "pluck-faced child-bride" Vicky (Joanna Barnes), who is quickly winning the heart of Mitch (Brian Keith)! A brief but quite eventful camping trip should solve the problem...!

In 1985, the Disney Channel made THE PARENT TRAP II, which brought Hayley Mills back to Disney for the first time since 1965, to reprise her roles of mischevious twins Sharon and Susan.

In the delightful first sequel, Sharon's pubescent daughter Nikki Ferris (Carrie Kei Heim) conspires to get her recently-divorced mother together with the father of her best friend Mary Grant (Bridgette Andersen). However, to acheive their goal, the girls must call in Sharon's twin Susan, who'll do most of the groundwork in getting the attention of Mary's father (Tom Skerritt). You'll adore this cute update in the continuing story of the twins' lives!

DISNEY TRIVIA: Nikki Ferris and Mary Grant are also the names of the characters played by Hayley Mills in THE MOON-SPINNERS and IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS...!

Disney has released PARENT TRAP II in a double-disc set with the previously-available Vault Disney edition of the original movie. Great vaulue!

Later followed by PARENT TRAP III, and PARENT TRAP: HAWAIIAN HONEYMOON (both are as yet unavailable on DVD).

I am a Disney phile. I love classic Disney fare.

The Parent Trap was a great follow up after Pollyanna for child star Hayley Mills. This 1961 classic used split screen better than ever. The supporting cast of Brian Keith (five years before he become Uncle Bill on Family Affair- when does that reach DVD?), Maureen O'Hara And Leo G. Carroll (Four years before he became a part of U.N.C.L.E-as in the man from!) works so well with the twin Mills's Sharon and Susan.

Most of the extra features from the Vault Disney version is here... except for the audio comments from Ms Mills and Direction David Swift. Unless you need the comments, the DVD is fine without it.

Twenty years later, Disney did a sequel, Parent Trap II. This wonderful comedy of errors happened so DISNEY-ish and works so well on many levels. Nikki and her friend Mary try to bring Mary's father together with Sharon. Enter Nikki's married aunt Susan to help Nikki and mary with their problem and the fun begins. The split screen effect is good, but not as good in the orginal trap. It STILL is pure Disney magic captured in a DVD

There are no extras regarding Parent Trap II... I know somewhere in the vault there is a 'making of PT2' feature, which is NOT on here. For Shame!

For children of all ages and fans of family entertainment, this DVD collection is great fun and rates high in my book

Bennet Pomerantz, AUDIOWORLD

My beloved Parent Trap 2 on dvd after many long yrs of waiting.
I cant wait until they put PT3 and Hawaiin Honeymoon on DVD too!

Sharon and Susan are all grown up and have families of thier own.
Sharon has just gone through a divorce and wants to move to New York City w/ her daughter.
While at Summer school her daughter meets a friend and their antics are funny. Her friend's mom died a while back and they are trying to get their parents together so Sharon wont have to move.

Not as good as the original PT but still fun to watch.
PLEASE PLEASE make PT3 and Hawaiian Honeymoon available soon.

The original Parent Trap is one of the finest family movies ever made. Hayley Mills plays 2 early teen girls, and these are great realistic performances of girls of the early 60's, not cutesy movie kids. There is also some adult humor that went right over my head when I saw this movie as a 6 year old - the look on Brian Keith's face when he sees Maureen O'Hara's bra and assumes it's the property of his 13 year old daughter is great.
As for the sequel, it was good but it had a little too much "cutesy kid" and not enough Hayley Mills for my taste.
The features are very good. The people interviewed all seemed to have liked each other and the project they made. The writer/director David Swift was a soft spoken, humble man who made a little masterpiece.

The Parent Trap is a great Family Movie. Parents, along with their Children, will enjoy the great fun this Movie provides. I grew up watching it, and still to this day don't get tired of viewing it. It's a classic!

I've loved the original Parent Trap movie for years, and I finally invested in this DVD of Parent Trap 1 and 2 because I thought it would be fun to watch them with my little girl. We've had a great time watching these together! Hayley Mills is fun to see as an adult in Parent Trap 2. Both were clean and funny; I don't remember anything I'd mind my 4-year-old seeing in either of them.

I remember these two movies from when I was a kid. And they are exactly that. The oldies but the goodies. My Grand-daughter and I enjoyed these movies a great deal. And we will watch them over and over again.

I grew up watching Hayley Mills, and wanted to share the movie with my
grandchildren.

I bought this for my 9 year old sister's b-day and she has literally watched it 20 times in the past couple of weeks! I loved it as a little girl and still love it today!

Of the six films Hayley Mills made for Disney, this one hands down is regarded as the most memorable and most fondly cherished. This isn't to dis those other five films, because I've seen them all and even the least of them is quite watchable stuff. But PARENT TRAP, which came out in 1961, is the one which resonates most, and thru the years the one I've seen most often. Definitely my favorite Hayley Mills picture.

The premise concerns two lookalike girls who meet at summer camp, shockingly discover that they're long lost twin sisters, and decide to switch places so that one girl could meet the other's parent. Then comes the scheme to piece back together their broken home and make their divorced parents fall in love with each other all over again, with the fly in the ointment being that their father has suddenly become engaged, and to a golddigger. This being Disney, the kids pull off their goofy plan, but not before a lot of laughs, a few songs, and the golddigger getting hers but good.

Young Hayley Mills, with her cute button nose and her infinite sunniness, is so good here that you tend to overlook some things. Such as that the parents would actually keep the children in the dark about their twinhood, or that Hayley's American accent really isn't. But those are quibbles easily beaten down by Hayley Mills being at her adorable best. Not only does she demonstrate her acting chops and her ease in front of the camera, but remember that she does this while taking on two roles - as Sharon, the prim and proper Bostonian girl, and Susan, the boisterous tomboy from a ranch in Monterey, California. As some bloke in the bonus features mention, the whole enchilada hinges on that one riveting scene in camp in which Sharon and Susan first learn that they're sisters. That moment packs an emotional wallop and gets you invested in the rest of the story, and that it works is squarely on Hayley Mills's ability to convey emotional believability. The still lovely Maureen O'Hara and rugged Brian Keith are here as the twins' divorced parents, who, faced with the kids' cheery gumption, don't at all stand a chance.

PARENT TRAP has garnered such good will that it's inspired three made-for-TV sequels (PARENT TRAP II, PARENT TRAP III, and PARENT TRAP: HAWAIIAN HONEYMOON) and a terrific 1998 remake starring Lindsay Lohan (The Parent Trap (Special Edition)). The agreeable PARENT TRAP II is also on this dvd, this story taking place 25 years later, in 1986, as a grown up Hayley Mills reprises her roles of Sharon and Susan, both of whom now have kids of their own. But while Susan is happily married, Sharon is divorced and planning to uproot herself and her kid Nikki for a fresh start in New York. Nikki, who doesn't want to move, attempts to play matchmaker for her mom, setting her up with her best friend's sportswriting single dad, Bill Grand (Tom Skerritt). But when Sharon proves reluctant in romance, the kids call on Sharon's twin sister Susan in California and convince her to pose as Sharon and go out with Bill, so that he can go ahead and start falling in love with Sharon already.

Things really get good when Sharon gets clued in to this conspiracy, and decides to concoct her own get-back. It's all good-natured mischief, capped off by the very funny sequence with Bill and a very distracted Susan (as Sharon) dining in a restaurant.

Even though THE PARENT TRAP II is told mostly from the kids' viewpoints (and the kids do a wonderful job), this movie is really about Hayley Mills. It's just so nice to see her again, and to catch up with the twins and see how they've gotten on. Grown up Hayley still has that endearing mojo she had when she was a kid. You still can't help but like her.

So both THE PARENT TRAP (widescreen) and THE PARENT TRAP II (full screen) are on the first disc. Disney does it up right in Disc 2, with all the cool bonus stuff on THE PARENT TRAP (but zilch bonus stuff on the sequel): "THE PARENT TRAP: Caught in the Act" - the 19-minute-long Making Of featurette; "Lost Treasures: Who's the Twin" - a segment on Susan Henning-Schutte, Hayley's body double featured in all those over-the-shoulder shots; a segment on the songwriters, the Sherman Brothers; "Let's Get Together" music video, which is just scenes from the film crammed together as the song plays over; "1961 Disney Studio Album" - quick glimpses of Disney films released in 1961, as well as Disneyland's then new rides and featured attractions.

The "Production Archives" selection offers the following: a fabulous must-see featurette on Hayley Mills; "Seeing Double" - the special effects featurette detailing how the f/x team pulled off Hayley Mill's double performance, thanks mostly thru the skillful blend of split screens, quick editing and over-the-shoulder shots (in which body double Susan Henning-Schutte was used extensively); "Title Makers" - featuring Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello as they sing the PARENT TRAP title song and talk about their then current project BABES IN TOYLAND; Kimball & Swift: The Disney Years" - Director David Swift interviews Disney animator Ward Kimball; PARENT TRAP trailers & TV spots; a gallery section of production photos, stills and art, cast biographies, advertising (movie posters, lobby cards, a PARENT TRAP comics), and even excerpts from a scene in the screenplay (the one where Sharon and Susan find out they're twins), with a "Film Reel" option to see how the actual scene plays out in the movie; and 5 audio archives (a radio spot, 2 songs "For Now, For Always" & "The Parent Trap" and two scenes giving you 4 options which break down the various elements that make up the sound: the dialogue, the music, the effects, or to hear them all put together, the final composite).

Uncle Walt supposedly was never too much impressed with actors. But he was very fond of Hayley Mills, whose personality I have to believe isn't too far removed from the charming characters she played on film. Other than the PARENT TRAP sequels, I haven't seen Hayley in her adult roles. But, going by the more recent interviews I've seen of her, she doesn't seem to have lost any of that appeal or sparkle which made her such a pleasure to watch onscreen. It's nice to be able to compare your idea of the person with the real thing, and to have the real thing come off favorably. That is very cool.