Continuity mistake: In the cabin when they are coming up with the idea to swap places, Susan has on white sneakers in the beginning of the scene when she is on the bed, and Sharon has on the black Mary Janes. Later in the scene, with no time to change shoes, Susan is seen walking around the cabin wearing the black Mary Janes.
Continuity mistake: When the twins are in the cabin and Sharon offers Susan a Fig Newton, the cookies are is a jumble in the box. A moment later, the cookies are in a clean row.
Revealing mistake: When in Boston, while walking through the park, Susan and her mother are obviously walking on a treadmill because the park background is moving way too fast for their walking speed.
Continuity mistake: In the camp cabin, the two girls are talking. It cuts away from one girl, and she has an ice cream cone in her hand, then cuts back and it's gone. This keeps happening.
Continuity mistake: When Mitch drives home from the airport, with 'Susan', the car's rear view mirror is gone in the close-ups, but reappears in wideshots of the car.
Continuity mistake: In Sharon and Susan's isolation cabin, the positions of Susan's celebrity photos on the wall change between shots, after being windblown.
Continuity mistake: When the girls in Sharon's cabin have been booby-trapped, they all wake up screaming to the sound of the bugle. There are shots of them in their beds and then one shot of a girl in the middle of the cabin getting a bucket of water dumped on her head. Considering that the cabin is covered in strings and stuff how could she have gotten there in just seconds?
Continuity mistake: When the girls are talking in the cabin after they find out they are sisters, Sharon is holding a cup of ice cream. When the shot alternates from rear to front views, the spoon is in her hand, then in the cup, then back in her hand again.
Continuity mistake: Mitch drives "Susan" home from the airport. After he touches her face, he puts his hand down next to him, but when it cuts, his hand is on the steering wheel.
Audio problem: When Susan is playing the guitar, it has an electric guitar sound. Susan is not playing an electric guitar and neither is Hecky so the guitar should not sound like that.
Other mistake: When the girls leave camp, if you look closely it is obvious that one of the girls (the one in the distance) is a double who does not look like Susan / Sharon at all.
Revealing mistake: When Mitch is driving "Susan" home from the airport, in one shot, the knob of the gear selector lever is visible above the dashboard, which means the transmission would be in Park.
Continuity mistake: Watch the yellow float that falls into the lake with Mitch, when Mitch is straining to see Maggie. First you can barely see it floating towards the right of the lake. Next angle, and it's behind him to the left.
Revealing mistake: When the "twins" are singing "Let's Get Together" they are standing side by side. Watch closely - because of the split screen, one twin's arm disappears for just a second when she swings it upwards. It actually happens twice - middle of song and end.
Continuity mistake: When Maggie and "Sharon" are having a picnic in the city park, they have a large wicker picnic basket. After they are done, and are walking home through the park, the picnic basket is no where to be seen. They have apparently just left it behind.
Other mistake: After the camping trip, in the kitchen, Maggie McKendrick remarks that the camping trip ended early. (It did so because of the blowout with Vicki.) Later, Maggie tells Mitch that she had made extra food for him and Susan for the next evening (done before they got home), because she and Sharon would be leaving in the morning. This is inconsistent.
Continuity mistake: When driving home to Boston from camp, they would show her in the car and the street behind her was like a big city street, then when they show the car from the outside, the street is like a small neighborhood street with totally different buildings and totally different cars (even different colors) right behind her.
Continuity mistake: When Susan is playing guitar during the "Let's Get Together" song, three - and sometimes four - fingers of her left hand are over the neck of the guitar. In a close-up, only two fingers are shown, and they are barely touching the lower edge of the neck.
Revealing mistake: When Susan goes outside to sit on steps after the rain has stopped you can see her double siting on the bunk looking at her photo album.
Revealing mistake: When they are driving home from the airport, you can see the reflection of the green screen on the car hood.
Answer: None. It's total fiction made up solely for the purpose of the movie. Even for a movie, it's far beyond the "suspension of disbelief" that siblings would ever be divided up between the two parents, and neither would have no contact with them, much less be prevented from knowing they had a brother or sister.
raywest ★
It was during the 1960s, the courts had no way of forcing parents to share children. They could have very easily just stayed away from each other out of the view of the judicial system.
This is what I always assumed as well. That this wasn't decided by court, the parents decided this on their own and did not bring it up to the court.
There has actually been a history of separating identical twins as babies, as there has been a fascination in studying what ways they'd be alike, and how they'd be different. During this time period, there were even agencies that would pay women who gave birth to identical twins to give them up for adoption, and have them be adopted in separate families. In today's world, this would not happen, but I wouldn't put it past a judge back in the 1960s.