The Parent Trap is a 1961 American romantic comedy film written and directed by David Swift. It stars Hayley Mills 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.