the audience applauded

People are voting emotionally.

I wanted to but couldn't!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

"A Child Is Waiting" is a film showing the happenings at a state institution for developmentally delayed kids. Back in the bad old days, people were routinely sent to giant state schools to live out their lives. Not only the mentally retarded, but blind, mentally ill, deaf and various disabled adults and kids were routinely sent off to these places--and it was the rare case where they stayed home with their families. This warehousing of these 'defectives' was thought to be best and fortunately for most of these individuals, such mass institutionalization has become a thing of the past (though de-institutionalization offers its own set of problems as well). The school in this film isn't quite a warehouse (you do get to see one later in the film) but it's far from a homelike environment. So, when you watch this movie, understand that it was very typical for the early 1960s--but not today.Burt Lancaster plays a doctor who runs the institution in the film. In some ways, he's very likable and committed and in others he's a very hard individual. He hires a new teacher for the place--an inexperienced by well-meaning lady (Judy Garland). At first, things seem to go well but when the two disagree on how to handle a particularly troubled kid, sparks start to fly. This boy has been abandoned by his family and they never visit him--and Garland is determined to do something to get him to open up and become a happier and higher-functioning resident. She also wants to give her love to the boy. But for Lancaster, pity is not on his agenda--he wants to toughen up the kids--to force them to respond to his less cuddly ways.For me, the story about the one boy is not all that important. To me, what's important is the insight it gives in the treatment and education of developmentally delayed kids--and to show how it was done long ago. to psychology majors, those who work in the field or anyone who lives with and loves someone with developmental delays, it's well worth seeing. A very good film--and you might want to keep a box of Kleenex handy just in case.By the way, one of the kids in the institution was played by Billy Mumy--the same kid who later starred on "Lost in Space" and as an adult on "Babylon 5"--and played the scary kid with freaky powers on "The Twilight Zone". Barbara Pepper who played 'Doris Zipfel' on "Green Acres" plays one of the teachers. Also, Steven Hill plays the disturbed boy's neglectful and rather angry father. He played the original lead on "Mission:Impossible" as well as the original District Attorney on "Law & Order". Finally, this was one of Judy Garland's last films. In 1963, she made this as well as "I Could Go On Singing" before dying so tragically young.

This is film I could never think to forget. Every moment, every interaction is saturated with meaning and force, and the whole is a beautiful tribute to people living with mental retardation and those dedicated people who work with them. Judy Garland's performance is candid, human, and wonderfully real, and it is one of the pillars on which the movie stands. Burt Lancaster is a great actor, who, of course, does a great job, too. Abby Mann's dialog is, as always, gloriously real and bares all emotion, however painful. This is certainly a movie to watch with tissue-box in hand. I wish I had had a tissue, and my poor, wet sleeve must wish it, too!

Potentially dramatic exploration of the human heart is simplified into a standard-issue soap opera (with do-gooder trimmings). Judy Garland, shaky but determined, plays middle-aged woman working at a children's school for the mentally-challenged; she immediately gets on the wrong side of school principal Burt Lancaster, who seems to sneer at her ambition and gives her a good dressing-down. Garland bonds with a near-catatonic child with absentee parents, and we are immediately made aware this woman needs to fill a personal void in her life by taking care of others--providing a certain emotional pay-off upon discovering her vocation in life may be to teach these kids (and reach their parents). I didn't quite believe anything in "A Child is Waiting"; it leaves behind no evidence that director John Cassavetes' heart was in it, nor why these particular talents would want to be involved. The good intentions may hook some, but Cassavetes shows little of the arty obtuseness which would drive his later, more ambitious and personal films about shattered men and women. ** from ****

This movie has the most tear-jerking moment I ever saw on a movie screen: "Reuben's mother isn't coming." You'd have to see it in context.Later we find out why Reuben's mother (Gena Rowlands) won't come and she's right: it would be cruel to a retarded boy and we learn a real-life lesson in great parenthood.I was in college in the '60s looking for anything to do besides study for an exam. I saw this movie listed and wouldn't have watched it if Burt Lancaster weren't in it. Then as the credits rolled the hits just kept on happening. I couldn't believe this many major people were involved including Stanley Kramer as producer and John Cassavetes directing. As a supporting actor, few people ever choose scripts better than Paul Stewart.Gena Rowlands is one of the all-time people I'd love to meet. I have 1400 movies on tape and I show them in retirement homes. The first movie I show in all of them is "Lonely Are the Brave," Kirk Douglas's favorite thing he ever did, with Gena as support. Best line: "If it didn't take men to have babies I wouldn't have anything to do with any of you." "Gloria" is the first movie I ever rented. In the retirement homes I show the scene where she suddenly shoots up a car to defend a child and the old people say "Good for her!" Back to "A Child Is Waiting," maybe it's just my love of children, I don't know why this movie isn't more famous.