... is anybody else but me disturbed by the entire premise? Two people divorce, for reasons never spoken in the film, and they literally divide the child in half ala Solomon. One baby of their identical twin girls goes to dad (Brian Keith), and the other to mom (Maureen O'Hara). Not only in the first ten odd years of their lives does neither parent ever see (you don't know if they inquire via the other parent) the other child, they deny to both children the knowledge that they have a sibling! What judge would sign off on this deal? Wouldn't grandparents intervene or try to sneak a peak at the other grandchild in all of this time? Disney seems to have created a world where none of these questions are asked and the parents are free to write up any child custody agreements they care to arrange in a vacuum.
Into this rather bizarre arrangement comes a summer camp to mess everything up. The two children end up at the same camp at the same time! Again, big screw up by the parents. One has been raised in upper crust Boston, the other on a ranch in Monterrey. Thus they have nothing in common but their looks. They cause trouble for each other with their pranks, until things escalate to the point that they are punished by being forced to live together in the same cabin in the woods. There they figure out they are sisters. So, now that they are each curious about their other parent, they decide turnabout is fair play and go back home to the parent they have never seen with each masquerading as the other.
The thing that upends their plans is that dad is getting ready to remarry. Now every synopsis I have seen describes bride-to-be Vicki as a golddigger, but let's face it. It's not like Gerry Hall is marrying Rupert Murdock here. Dad is not that rich and not that old. He could live a long time and he could go broke. It was just a plot device to get the girls to reveal their switcheroo and thus get mom to fly to California and get the parents talking again, and to have an excuse for the girls not to like their stepmother to be, whose only problem seems to be that she is just not the outdoors type to be living on a ranch. And let's face it, the girls wouldn't like their new stepmom if she was Mary Poppins because she would be busting up their dreams of a reunified family.
So how does this end? I'll let you watch and find out. I will say in the film's defense that it has a great two-tiered script with slapstick and adolescent humor for the kids and plenty of whimsy for the adults. The sentiment is genuine and not saccharine and the veterans in the cast give it plenty of gravitas, and kudos to Hayley Mills for making me forget that I wasn't looking at two different little girls. Just don't THINK too hard, because it ruins everything.
Into this rather bizarre arrangement comes a summer camp to mess everything up. The two children end up at the same camp at the same time! Again, big screw up by the parents. One has been raised in upper crust Boston, the other on a ranch in Monterrey. Thus they have nothing in common but their looks. They cause trouble for each other with their pranks, until things escalate to the point that they are punished by being forced to live together in the same cabin in the woods. There they figure out they are sisters. So, now that they are each curious about their other parent, they decide turnabout is fair play and go back home to the parent they have never seen with each masquerading as the other.
The thing that upends their plans is that dad is getting ready to remarry. Now every synopsis I have seen describes bride-to-be Vicki as a golddigger, but let's face it. It's not like Gerry Hall is marrying Rupert Murdock here. Dad is not that rich and not that old. He could live a long time and he could go broke. It was just a plot device to get the girls to reveal their switcheroo and thus get mom to fly to California and get the parents talking again, and to have an excuse for the girls not to like their stepmother to be, whose only problem seems to be that she is just not the outdoors type to be living on a ranch. And let's face it, the girls wouldn't like their new stepmom if she was Mary Poppins because she would be busting up their dreams of a reunified family.
So how does this end? I'll let you watch and find out. I will say in the film's defense that it has a great two-tiered script with slapstick and adolescent humor for the kids and plenty of whimsy for the adults. The sentiment is genuine and not saccharine and the veterans in the cast give it plenty of gravitas, and kudos to Hayley Mills for making me forget that I wasn't looking at two different little girls. Just don't THINK too hard, because it ruins everything.