"The Parent Trap" old vs. new versions

I watched the 1961 and 1998 versions of this movie. Although I usually
don't care for remakes, I liked the 1998 version much better.

Jocelyn De Contents...

I grew up with the original and am loyal to that one. But the remake
was quite good and I enjoyed it. LL did a good job with the accent.
In the original I think it was Susan who grew up in Boston but oddly
had a British accent (mainly because Mills did, I think!) even though
her mom had a slight Irish one. Hayley Mills was indeed a British girl
and had to put on an American accent, and self admittedly she kept
going in and out of it in a rather cute way. In other words, Hayley
could get away with it but LL really had to get a Brit accent spot on
and she did rather well.

hancock4...

I think in the original it would've been seen as too far fetched to
have a camper come all the way from London, so the girl came from
"proper" Boston. The English accent was to be for that.

Frankly, Mills wasn't that good with the accents, certainly not as good
as LL was. (British people can do American accents just as we can do
theirs, for example, Lucy Lawless).

me...

Except Lucy Lawless is from New Zealand ;)

In the commentary track on the original DVD, they said the accent
switchover was a problem in making the film, the director put pressure
on Mills to do better.

(As an aside, the commentaries contradicted each other. The director
said Walt Disney himself gave him a totally free hand and never
interfered (only checking the dailies), but others said Disney was down
on the set every day checking on things.)

The original director also noted that the remake didn't use two scenes
used in the original, and it made me curious as if "sensitivity" to
modern social attitudes was a reason. The first unused scene was the
dance where one twin cut out the girl's dress showing her underwear.
The remake didn't show the camp dance at all. The second unused scene
was the father finding the mother's bra in his bathroom and wondering
who it was from--too big for the daughter. (Of course the remake used
the hotel for the big father-mother meet so it was a different context).

Bill Steele...

Modern social attitudes don't allow showing underwear? Quite the
contrary, I'd say. Maybe it was LL's attitudes.

Perhaps it was due to the change of style and times, but I felt the
1998 version had a "softer" edge to it that I liked. The 1998 father
particularly was softer, smiling much more than the gruff 1961 father.

Although I'm a big fan of Haley Mills, I must admit Lindsay Lohan did a
great job (apparently her first role). She was much better with the
English/American accents.

et472...

But what did you think of the original before you saw the remake?

That's how you evaluate it, not by comparing it with a remake.

Did you think "They really should remake this"? Maybe adding "this
would be so much better if..." or were you satisfied with the original?

My take is that none of the original Disney movies needed to be remade,

Anim8rFSK...

Especially THE PARENT TRAP. I mean, the original had this gimmick: You
KNEW who Haley Mills was, and you KNEW there weren't two of her in real
life, so it was magic! New fangeled tricks!

By casting LL, who there might well have been two of, in a film in an
era where there wasn't that much magic to making two of somebody any
more, they sort of missed the whole gag of the first one.

And yet, the remake is a very enjoyable film. Go figure.

and they should have just brought the originals out of storage. If
they want newer starts, or a more recent tone, then they should come
up with some new story to tell, and then make that, rather than sit
back and use a decades old script. IN effect, they are saying the
script is fine, so they might as well just use the original movie.

That was a horrible period in the eighties when they started remaking
old Disney movies. I'd see "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" listed
and get excited, only to discover it was the remake.

Jude Cormier...

"Freaky Friday" being another one--I didn't mind the Lindsey Lohan/Jamie Lee
Curtis remake, but that oh-say-they-didn't--remake in the 90s on TV with
Shelly Long and Gaby Hoffman!

et472...

I'd forgotten, yes some of those old Disney films were remade three
times.

The Fred MacMurray "Flubber" films in the early sixties.
"The Absent-Minded Professor" in 1988 with Harry Anderson.
"Flubber" in 1997 with Robin Williams.

"Parent Trap" too:
The original from 1961.
The "sequel" in 1986 where Hayley Mills plays the mother,
and there were a few followups.
And then the Lindsay Lohan one in 1998

So basically Disney remade the old films as made for TV movies
in the eighties, and then remade at least some of them in the nineties
as theatrical releases. Talk about no originality.

Same goes for "The Shaggy Dog" and "The Love Bug"

et472...

Of course, "The Love Bug" was stretched out as a series of
movies for so long, with the actors changing after a few, that did
we really see remakes or just resurrections of a series?

Jude Cormier...

TV movie in the '90s with Bruce Campbell called "The Love Bug" was a remake.

Anim8rFSK...

No, it wasn't. Dean Jones appeared in it as his original character.

"Herbie Fully Loaded" with Lindsey Lohan was a sequel to the theatricals.

Anim8rFSK...

I think "resurrections of a series" -- I haven't seen every incarnation
of TLB, but everything I have has been in a continuous stream. At the
point where they make a TLB film with a NEW Volkswagen Beetle, you'll
know we're getting a remake.

Jude Cormier...

oooops, my bad. But they should have called it something else then.

The only thing I don't get is how people keep losing their living car.
I mean, unless something awfully tramatic happens, you pretty need to
take active steps to get rid of an automobile.

Anim8rFSK...

Replying to myself here:

I had the same reservation about the never filmed (I don't think*) Mr.
Ed reunion. Alan Young described it as how Wilber and Ed had drifted
apart over the years and were reunited. It's not like Ed was an old
high school friend who moved to another state and you both got busy. Ed
is something(one) you OWN. He lives in your barn. I mean, I guess you
could have a spat and he could run away, but I don't see how you can
drift apart.

*there is suppposed to be some Mr. Ed reunion presentation film or
something I've never seen. Dunno if they went with this idea or not.

bllbickel...

The sense I got was that the 1961 version was primarily a story about
the parents, while the 1998 remake was primarily a story about the
girls.

Anim8rFSK...

That's an interesting take.

I also recall the parents as being more sympathatic in the remake,
although I still think hiding a sibling from the other is cruel beyond
redemption.

hancock4...

The parents were far more sympathetic in the remake. In the original
both parents seemed stricter and structured, telling the girls "Today,
you will do this, then you will do that." In the remake it was softer,
"Hey girls, how about today we go see ....?" In the original when the
girl got the telegram the family sharply demanded she turn it over to
them and explain it.

Brian Keith smiled a lot less than Dennis Quaid and also seemed to have
a temper.

In the original the girls were slapped across the face several times as
punishment for being fresh. In 1961 that was typical. That was not
done in the remake.

I think the remake reflects the changes in parenting styles between
1961 and 1998. Slapping kids was common back then, not as much now
(esp a 14 y/o girl).

In the commentary soundtrack on the original, the original director
mentioned that cruelty. He said they had to say it because it was a
key part of the story, but then move quickly beyond it because of its
sensitive nature.

Going back many years it was not uncommon to separate siblings for
adoption or divorce purposes.

Speaking of twins, there was a Charles Addams cartoon: "Separated at
birth, the Malifort twins met accidently". The picture showed two
identical men sitting a waiting room glaring at each other. Each man
had some sort of identical contraption on his lap. The office door
read "Patent Attorney".

Bill Bickel
http://www.crimepundit.com