The Student Nurses

Barbara Leigh later revealed that during her audition interview, director Stephanie Rothman asked her to expose her breasts "to see if they were worth photographing" because the role involved a nude scene on the beach. Leigh had never done that before and was very embarrassed, but since it was a woman asking, she did it.

The "Love In" scene was shot during a real hippie gathering at Griffith Park, and was decided as the means for the scene when Director Rothman and associates received word there would be such an event. On the day of, Rothman gathered actors Richard Rust and Barbara Leigh and the camera crew, and the team "meandered" in to the gathering upon arrival. The scene is the result.

Director Stephanie Rothman stated that producer Roger Corman offered her the chance to make this film in the wake of other low-budget dramas that had been successful because of more-than-usual R-rated nudity (or as Corman called them, "contemporary dramas with a liberal to left wing viewpoint and some R-rated sex and humor"). Rothman said that she basically had free reign to address the political and social issues that she felt were ignored by the major studios. The only conditions were that the movie had to be about female nurses, who were thought to be a popular male fantasy at the time because they were "caring [...] women who could legitimately touch men all over"; she also had to meet the requirements for nudity and violence to draw the audience in, which she tried to "dramatically justify [...] and to make them transgressive, but not repulsive". To her surprise, the movie was indeed a success with men, mainly because of the nurse fantasy. It established New World Pictures as a serious production company, and led to a slew of sequels and similarly-themed exploitation movies about young women in mundane jobs.

Stephanie Rothman was determined to portray the nurses in her film as "independent in thought and action", and to achieve a balance of the power between the sexes. This is why many scenes feature male as well as female nudity, a relative novelty at the time.

The first film released by Roger Corman's New World Pictures.