After School Specials: Sara's Summer of the Swans

After School Specials: Sara's Summer of the Swans
ABC
October 2, 1974
Children's
DVD
B-

Bob Rodgers's second adaptation of a Betsy Byars novel is better than The Eighteenth Emergency.  In this case, I have read the book (including in the last few months), and it's a pretty good adaptation, although inevitably some things get left out or simplified.  Admittedly the acting and the writing are a little stiff (what fourteen-year-old uses words like "dwindle"?), but nonetheless there are moments that feel genuine, including what it's like to be an awkward adolescent.  Both Chris Knight and Eve Plumb, as Joe and Gretchen, appear (looking not much different than they had a few months before on The Brady Bunch), although his role is much more significant.  The best performance is by 47-year-old Priscilla Morrill as Aunt Willie.  Among other things, she would be Chrissy's mother on Three's Company.  And 2nd Bully Kevin McCarley was the bully Peaches in The Eighteenth Emergency.