Runaway Daughters was Joe Dante’s contribution to Rebel Highway, Showtime’s 1994 series of remakes of AIP movies from the ’50s. The original movie, by all accounts, was shot in five days. Ours took twelve. 

 

When Joe asked me to write the script he sent me a VHS of the original picture. After I watched it he asked, “What did you think of the symbolism?”

 

“What symbolism?” I said.

 

“Well -- the runaway daughters go from city to city, from one end of the country to another... but no matter where they go, they can never escape from that one couch.” 

 

Roger Corman’s memoir / oral history, How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime, is an excellent resource on the world of AIP.