Another Doctor Visit

Columbia Back In Scrubs with The New Interns (1964)

Director John Rich said in his memoir that the script for this really barked and that he'd do plenty streamlining to make it play. Prognosis? Negative to start, but hang in because this Interns sequel gets better. New staffers include chip-on-shoulder George Segal, who gets an introductory credit and seems to have looked into his mirror and seen John Cassevetes. Some characters are back, Michael Callan's breakdown from the first pic apparently healed, and Dean Jones takes the place of James MacArthur to wed returning Stephanie Powers. More babies get born as previous (Variety called these sequences "gory"). Another wild party outdoes the one we'd seen in '62, a bigger and better blowout this time expected. While chatting w/ Dawn Wells at the Winston-Salem western con, I asked how long they spent shooting the party sequence. She said five days, and it was right when shots were fired in Dallas, so who'd ever forget that week? These New Interns talk of $40 a month salary and live in ratty digs; was this the true lot of medical trainees then, and does something like it persist to this day? Variety estimated domestic rentals of $2.670 million for The New Interns, distinctly down from the first one, but not bad for what shouldn't have been a costly follow-up.