Don't send your daughter to college


A rich girl, played by Barbara Stanwyck, is caught hanging around with a campus agitator. Her father yanks her out of college and sends her south of the border to cool off. There she meets — and naturally falls for — a handsome Border Patrolman (Robert Young), whose straight-arrow ways quickly reform her leftish proclivities.

This was Red Salute of 1935. In 1953 some folks in Hollywood thought it would be a good idea to remake the film, and they did: Runaway Daughter. A new marketing campaign was devised — "A startling story of RED MENACE at work in our schools ... planting the seed of treason among the men and women of tomorrow!"

The poster says: "... from today's headlines!" Ah, but, it was a recycled 1935 movie.

Relevance to today? Hm. Well, it does give anti-immigration politicians another reason to argue on the stump for a beefed-up Border Patrol.

source: Better Red Than Dead: A Nostalgic Look at the Golden Years of RussiaPhobia, Red-baiting, and Other Commie Madness, by Michael Barson (New York: Hyperion, 1992).