“Red Salute, Stanwyck's 21st film...(gave) her a welcome chance to concentrate on a madcap comedy role and display the skill at verbal repartee that would become more marked under directors Leisen and Sturges, when she had better verbal ammunition with which to spar. Historically the film has two areas of interest. First, it's one of the earliest of many blatant rip-offs of 1934's It Happened One Night.... Secondly, it's one of several films of its period dealing with Communist infiltration into college campuses, and at the time it was picketed and attacked for dealing with this political hot potato in somewhat hysterical and superficial terms. The FBI gets up to some rather underhanded tricks to trap and deport the #1 malcontent--and presumably one is supposed to applaud their cleverness. However, the film does rather load the scales: when Hardie Albright is playing the Communist, obviously any tactics are justified. The decidedly surface-level understanding of what constitutes Communism is underlined by a deathless scene (and line) wherein hero Robert Young discovers that heroine Stanwyck can't be a Communist because she dances well, and ‘Deep-thinkers are dodos on the dance-floor!'.... (O)ccasionally a little mawkish, as in the flag-wagging and the Capra-like speech at the end, it is nevertheless brisk and consistently entertaining.” William K. Everson