Taking a cue from "A Summer Place" to appeal to both adults and teens, this Disney comedy is a charming reminder of what was once known as family night out. There's two Hayley Mills for the price of one for the teens (fresh from "Pollyanna") and the still sexy Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith as their divorced parents for the adults. This family affair busted up years before thanks to the inability to come to terms with their differences, and the decision for each of the parents to get custody of one of the twin girls, now precocious, boy crazy teens.
Unaware that they have a look alike, the very differently brought up young ladies meet at summer camp where it's hate at first sight. Not seeing the similarity in their voices, they don't question that until they are confined together after getting into a cat fight. The two plot to switch places, one ending up in stuffy Boston and the other in sunny California, plotting to get the parents together after a long separation in an effort to rekindle the spark. But with daddy Keith on the verge of marrying an obvious gold digger (a delightfully bitchy Joanna Barnes), they must connive quickly!
Disney rarely did better outside their big musicals than they did here, including a fantastic cast of character actors who are all unique and very funny. There's Cathleen Nesbitt as O'Hara's imperious mother, Charles Ruggles as O'Hara's henpecked father, Una Merkel as Keith's plain spoken housekeeper, and Ruth McDeavitt and Nancy Kulp as summer camp moderators. Leo G. Carroll stifles an amusing chuckle watching all the craziness unfold as the minister planning on marrying Keith and Barnes.
Having often quoted her ping pong ball monologue from "Auntie Mame", I adored Barnes here, but then again, there's absolutely nothing to dislike. Well, that is except the song that Mills sings as a duet in the reconciliation scene with the parents. It instantly dates the film, but the sequences where the twins take on the nasty Barnes in the middle of the woods makes up for it. This has been remade twice, but for me, nothing bests the original.
Unaware that they have a look alike, the very differently brought up young ladies meet at summer camp where it's hate at first sight. Not seeing the similarity in their voices, they don't question that until they are confined together after getting into a cat fight. The two plot to switch places, one ending up in stuffy Boston and the other in sunny California, plotting to get the parents together after a long separation in an effort to rekindle the spark. But with daddy Keith on the verge of marrying an obvious gold digger (a delightfully bitchy Joanna Barnes), they must connive quickly!
Disney rarely did better outside their big musicals than they did here, including a fantastic cast of character actors who are all unique and very funny. There's Cathleen Nesbitt as O'Hara's imperious mother, Charles Ruggles as O'Hara's henpecked father, Una Merkel as Keith's plain spoken housekeeper, and Ruth McDeavitt and Nancy Kulp as summer camp moderators. Leo G. Carroll stifles an amusing chuckle watching all the craziness unfold as the minister planning on marrying Keith and Barnes.
Having often quoted her ping pong ball monologue from "Auntie Mame", I adored Barnes here, but then again, there's absolutely nothing to dislike. Well, that is except the song that Mills sings as a duet in the reconciliation scene with the parents. It instantly dates the film, but the sequences where the twins take on the nasty Barnes in the middle of the woods makes up for it. This has been remade twice, but for me, nothing bests the original.