The Parent Trap is a 1961 American romantic comedy film written and directed by David Swift. It stars Hayley Mills (in a dual role) as a pair of teenage twins plotting to reunite their divorced parents by switching places with each other. Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith play the parents. Although the plot is very close to that of the 1945 film Twice Blessed, The Parent Trap is based on the 1949 German children's novel Das doppelte Lottchen by Erich Kästner.

Plot

Teenagers Sharon McKendrick and Susan Evers meet at Miss Inch's Summer Camp for Girls. Their identical appearance causes jealousy, resentment, and a rivalry in which they continually get each other into trouble and disrupt camp activities. As punishment, they must spend the remainder of the camp season rooming and dining together in isolation. They overcome their mutual dislike when they discover that they are identical twin sisters, whom their parents Mitch Evers and Maggie McKendrick separated upon divorcing shortly after their birth. Eager to meet the parents from whom they were separated, they decide to switch places, cut their hair identically, and coach each other on their lives.