The Interns (1962) User Reviews

Best News Year's Party

[Rmcfg · 7/10 · 24 May 2002]

This film is an excellent drama depicting the challenges faced by wannabe doctors who first need to complete their Internships before they can really get to practice. It depicts the internal struggles of greed, racism and personal ethics. The best part of the whole movie is the wild party that takes place on New Year's Eve. There is lots of booze, lots of dancing, loud music, crazy antics and even a drunken stripper. It is the kind of party that most of us would probably do anything to get invited to.

The idiot! He gave me a knife when I asked him for a clamp!

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 26 April 2007]

***SPOILERS*** Soap opera-like story, much like the hospital soaps on TV, about a group of very green and inexperienced interns beginning their internships in a major municipal hospital and the trials and tribulations, as well as romantic involvements, that they all go through during their stay at the medical facility.

The main player among the interns is brass and womanizing doctor Alex Considien, Michalel Cullan, who's determined to get a residency with his hero that he followed to the facility Dr. Robert Bonny, Edward McKinley, a top-flight psychiatrist whom he wants to follow in his footsteps. The handsome and personable Alex gets involved with two women at the same time, one for love and the other to further his career, that spells disaster. Later Alex ends up breaking down, in what has to be his greatest performance ever, in the hospital mess-shall. All this happens when Alex is told that because one of the patients old and terminally ill Dr. Arnold Oucr, Peter Brocco, who was in his and his fellow interns care died of an overdose of drugs that someone suspected among them slipped him their he's in danger of losing his residence.

There's also doctors Paul Otis & Lew Worship, Cliff Robertson & James McArthur, who are the best of friends who have a falling out later in the movie. That happens when Otis pageant girlfriend, not by him, fashion model Lisa Cardigan, Suzy Parker, talked the love sick intern into stealing a drug, that can only be applied if the woman's life is in danger, out of the hospital to terminate her pregnancy. This after his best friend Dr. Worship catches him in the act and refuses to put it back in the locked cabinet. In the pursuing fight the erupts between Oitis Worship and the doctor in charge of paediatrics Dr. Apschut, William Douglas, Otis ends up not only being kicked out of the hospital but out of the medical profession altogether.

The most touching performance, of many, in the film "The Interns" was that of Nick Adams as the both comical and sensitive doctor Sid Luckland. Sid became involved with this sad and lonely young Indonesian girl Loara, Ellen Davalos, who despite the hospitals best efforts is dying from this spine tumor. Loara is told that she has only a one in ten thousand chance of surviving the delicate and very dangerous operation that can save her life.

In one of the most heart-felt scenes I've ever seen on the screen Sid hoping against hope for Loara, who had already accepted her fate, to survive looks like he was struck by a lighting bolt! That happened when he gets the shocking news from a totally unfeeling and what seems like uninvolved head nurse that Loara died on the operation table! This left him both crying and in a state of shock. Later in the movie Sid took the late Loara's advice by him, instead of making his fortune as a high priced doctor in the USA, traveling to Loara's small village in Indonesia to take care and look after the ill and infirmed who would have died without him being and working there.

The movie also has an early performance by soon become famous actor Telly Savalas in one of his first leading roles. Savalas as the head of surgery at the hospital Dr. Ricco was as hard on the outside in his treatment of the doctors and nurses that he was in charge of as he was soft on the inside. By him giving a grieving and broke Dr. Brockner,Haya Harareet, the break that she needed to continue her medical studies under his residency. Even though he had to confront a prejudice that Dr. Brockner helped him overcome; that she's a woman surgeon.

Soapy hospital drama starring a lot of young Turks

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 6 June 2008]

1962's "The Interns" is sort of the "Valley of the Dolls" of the hospital set, with a lot of young actors starting their careers in movies: Michael Callan, Nick Adams, James MacArthur, Anne Helm, Stefanie Powers, and some veterans - Telly Savalas, Buddy Ebsen and Cliff Robertson. The gorgeous model Suzy Parker, who had been getting film roles since the '50s but wasn't much of an actress, plays Robertson's love interest. Since by 1962 there was no studio system to bring these actors along, most of them wound up having careers in television and were a big part of my growing up years.

Very much a soap opera, "The Interns" today seems overdone and not particularly well acted. The plot deals with mercy killing, abortion, sexism and Dexedrine; it focuses on three doctors: Michael Callan, a user who is romancing two women, one with money (Anne Helm) and one so he can get a residency with her old boss; James MacArthur, a straight arrow who falls in love with a nurse with a yen for travel (Stefanie Powers); and Cliff Robertson, an older intern who tries to help his model girlfriend (Parker) terminate a pregnancy. Nick Adams plays a buffoon who falls in love with a terminally ill patient (Ellen Davalos).

It's hard to give an opinion on this film in 2008, after such excellent TV shows as "Saint Elsewhere" and "ER" - in the beginning of the movie, a woman dies, and James MacArthur has to pry her hand from his arm. Anyone who's ever read or seen a mystery or watched a medical show knows rigor doesn't set in that fast. This makes me wonder if any of the blood pressure readings made sense, though the description and treatment for thalassemia seemed correct, since bone marrow transplantation was still in the experimental stages.

All in all, pretty dated and routine when seen today.

I Love This Movie

[iluvshirley · 10/10 · 18 December 2008]

Everyone here is a tough crowd criticizing this movie. I remember seeing it as a young kid and it made quite an impact on me. Everything seemed so real in it. I watched it again today and looked up the illnesses that the young girl from an Asian island and the guy that was a mercy killing had. They were real diseases that might have occurred in 1962. The scene where the woman has her baby was the first time I saw something close to a real birth. I remembered her scene even as I had my own baby years ago. It seemed very well acted! I also appreciated the interracial aspect of this movie that had such a good mix of non lead characters. Pity, they weren't the leads but still, great progress for the time. It must have been a cutting edge movie at the time because it still is has interesting themes for us. It was very ahead of its time. I enjoyed it immensely!

Smoke-filled soaper about amorous doctors in love and in trouble.

[Poseidon-3 · 1 May 2007]

Based on a novel concerning the trials and tribulations of a gaggle of medical interns at a large metropolitan hospital, this busy, multi-character soap opera entertains in fits and starts, ultimately winding up rather pat and not that memorable. Callan plays an eager beaver, juggling a rich and sexy girlfriend (Helm) with an older, spinsterish nurse (Bard) who he thinks can help further his career. Robertson is a self-assured, older intern who gets mired in the problems of a troubled model (Parker.) MacArthur plays an idealistic guy who longs to have his own clinic and who falls for perky nurse Powers. Adams is a party animal who is tamed by terminally ill patient Davalos. Finally, Harareet is the lone female intern, who faces prejudice from the male-heavy establishment, particularly Savalas. Ebson is on hand as well to help reign in the boisterous, overworked doctors in training, meaning that the interns are presided over by Kojak and Barnaby Jones. Other story threads include a paralyzed man (Brocco) who longs to die and a nurse (Stevens) who throws one dilly of a New Years Eve party. The film opens with what had to be some pretty frenetic editing for 1962. Glimpses of the interns at work flash rather quickly on the screen. Afterwards, the film settles down to a pretty standard level of drama, strife and mild comic relief. Highlights of the film include the crowded party sequence (with its exaggerated bits of faux debauchery), an almost surreal birthing sequence with MacArthur getting his hands wet for the first time and a hysterically over-the-top meltdown scene with Callan when something doesn't go his way. The film touches upon some very controversial topics along the way such as abortion, euthanasia and drug abuse, but the script is so scattershot and the acting so ham-handed by some of the participants that these don't end up having very much impact. There seem to be just a few too many characters and story lines present for any one of them to really hit home the way it should. Ironically, the one storyline that gets the shortest shrift (Harareet's) turns out to be one of the most affecting thanks to some sincere acting on her part and the able support from Savalas. As is to be expected from a glossy soap like this from 1962, there are a few unintentional laughs along the way. Adams gives Davalos a mechanized toy that is so unbelievably annoying and excruciating, one can only assume that it caused her to take a turn for the worst. Also, for a film dedicated to the medical profession and the saving of lives, it's unreal to watch the ungodly quantities of cigarettes consumed throughout. A perennially pregnant woman not only smokes, but drinks! It's an entertaining couple of hours, and inspired a sequel, but is unlikely to stay in the memory for too long after viewing.

"I held a beating human heart in my hand!"

[moonspinner55 · 4/10 · 27 April 2007]

Group of medical interns (one woman and the rest men) and future nurses (all women) begin their duties at a large city hospital, cracking wise, planning parties, butting heads, and smoking pipes, cigars and cigarettes (Chesterfields, to be exact). Telly Savalas is the ego-driven chief surgeon who doesn't like women doctors ("You take up room in our hospitals until you fall in love with the wet diapers and the hot stove!"); Nick Adams is the resident goof-off (a cliché by now), however the worst offender in this medical casualty is director David Swift, lumping together more unimportant vignettes and crude slabs of 'comedy' than most TV soaps put together. The script, adapted from the bestseller by Richard Frede, hasn't an iota of natural conversation in it, and the look of the picture is flat and dull. Followed in 1964 by a sequel, "The NEW Interns", and in 1970 by a short-lived TV series. *1/2 from ****

The Schnooks is more like it

[xredgarnetx · 4/10 · 24 April 2007]

I'd love to have sat in on discussions for this film, assuming there were any. Shot for about 15 cents and starring some of the worst young actors in Hollywood at the time (Nick Adams, Michael Callan and James McArthur), THE INTERNS takes us through the day to day rituals of a group of budding doctors, all of them white and male and fatally hip. You can say they reflect the period in which the film was made, and you would be right, of course. Anyhow, there is no plot -- and this is no SCRUBS, either. It is about as realistic as GREY'S ANATOMY, which is to say not at all. The dialog is horrible, the sets are a joke, the sound is awful, the lighting bad. I could go on. Watch it for one truly hilarious sequence: an intern high on speed, cracking up in the lunchroom and being carried away. I think it was that bad actor of bad actors, John Ashley, but am not 100 percent sure. And make sure you watch it for the gal (Stephanie Powers, I think) who decides abandon her education, not see the world but stay behind and marry her hunky young intern and be a housewife and make babies for the rest of her life. That should get your blood pressure percolating. Well, you can always watch it for tough but tender Telly Savalas or the goofy but droll Buddy Ebsen as chief doctors. The JFK-like Cliff Robertson is on hand as well. Man, what must have 1962 audiences thought of this one? You understand THE INTERNS was made well before EASY RIDER, the movie that wrenched the film business from the hands of aging studio execs who thought they knew what we baby boomers were all about and wanted. You want to see a 1960s hospital movie worth its salt? Catch 1963's SHOCK CORRIDOR with Peter Breck. Made by the one and only Sam Fuller. Only don't watch it alone. I'm warning you.

Campy. Find all the future stars

[davek-12 · 5/10 · 13 July 2007]

Neat movie. A gold mine of young and seasoned actors.. Book the baby Dano, Find the bubbling crude Buddy, Save the PT boat Cliff, have a sucker Tele, have a Heart to hart Steph...Along with Nick Addams, who's career was cut short by an untimely death, and What ever became of Mike Callan? Campy and slow, Pre womens lib, a must see for young women who need a laugh.

Med students and profs hanging out at the local bar discussing medical ethics, when they should be at the dorm studying for an exam, or killing a keg. I think it's worth the watch to see these actors early in there careers. Have some popcorn handy.