In the 1930s, 40s, 50s and beyond, crappy little film studios churned out a continuous supply of so-called 'Youth Gone Wild' pictures. These movies announce that they are intended to warn parents and society of the hazards of terrible parenting. Inevitably, either because of extreme neglect and indifference or because of abuse and over- control, the teens* in the movies end up either getting killed, going to prison or committing hellishly brutal murders and robberies. And, in many of the films, there is a judge or cop who asks the audience what could have been done to prevent all this. These movies are almost always highly moralistic AND lurid at the same time. This is because although they claim to be doing a public service, they actually often just want to titillate and get around censorship laws!
As far as these sorts of films go, "Runaway Daughters" is pretty typical...though not as lurid as some of the films. One parent overly controls his daughter and acts as if fun and boyfriends are evil, one set of parents simply are never home and another set of parents are so busy partying and carousing themselves that they couldn't care less about their daughter's behaviors. As for the boys, many as simply perverts who are out for one thing and one thing only (and it's NOT a soda down at the malt shop). A few (the highly indulgent and indifferent mom) are horrible actors and all the stories come off as incredibly simplistic. Deep is not a word I'd use to describe this movie!
So is it worth seeing? Well, not if you want to see a good movie...it stinks. However, I happen to be a person who loves exploitation and youth gone wild movies....and for folks like me, this one is quite enjoyable...though not even close to being as entertaining or titillating as my two favorites, "Reefer Madness" and "Sex Madness", both by the same crappy filmmakers. In fact, for the genre this one has reasonably good production values...which isn't saying much. Some other similar bad movies you might want to seek out include: "Delinquent Daughters", "Where Are Your Children?", "Enlighten Thy Daughter", "Youth Run Wild" as well as "The Terrible Truth"....among others.
*In almost all these films, the 'youth' appear to be in their 20s or 30s! This one features actors that appear close to being teens but clearly many of them are NOT youth nor have been for quite some time! At 20, 22 and 26, the ffemale leads are not exactly youthful.
