Birch Interval is a 1976 American coming-of-age drama film written by Joanna Crawford, directed by Delbert Mann, and starring Eddie Albert, Rip Torn, Ann Wedgeworth, Anne Revere, and Susan McClung.
[1] In 1947, a fatherless 11-year-old girl, Jesse, is sent away from her big-city home to spend a year with her relatives in the quaint farm village of Birch Interval, which is in the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch Country of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
"[2] Bernard Drew of The Journal News wrote, "The big scenes – up until the end – seem to have already occurred or to happen offscreen.
"[3] Jerry Stein of The Cincinnati Post wrote, "Unfortunately, the reserved behavior of the characters brings a basic lifelessness to the film.
[6] In 2006, FilmFanatic.org wrote of the film: "[W]hile it does dip into a made-for-TV sensibility at times, and the overall arc of the narrative flits around rather unevenly to various vignettes ... without giving them their due, Mann’s overall intention – telling a coming-of-age story, with all its inevitable stickiness and melodrama – remains a worthy one."