Excellent, smart action film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland in a movie together? I couldn't imagine it either, but they worked really well together in A Child is Waiting. Burt plays the head of an institute for mentally handicapped children-which was really groundbreaking in the 1960s-and Judy is hired as the new music therapy teacher. Their perspectives differ constantly, and even though she has no prior experience teaching or dealing with disabled kids, she feels free to argue with him whenever she thinks he's wrong. Only the pint-sized dynamite of Judy Garland could challenge the great, hulking Burt Lancaster and get away with it!If you love Judy, you'll want to add this one to your list, so you can see her in a great dramatic role. Burt comes across as cold and harsh sometimes, but since he's always thinking of the children's best interests, it's great to see him in another multi-layered performance. I don't generally like stories that solely focus on the plight of children, but I was able to appreciate the acting, and the bold statement from Hollywood to address a subject like this at the time. If mental disabilities are a passion of yours, this is a must-see, since it's one of the earliest films to discuss them.

This movie personally hits home with me as I was personally attached to people with mental disorders. I had a cousin who was born with a brain injury. I watched my siblings and cousins grow with the usual maturation process except for my damaged cousin as she did develop as a woman yet her brain remained unvaried. I also watched her parents, my second cousins deal with her condition. They loved her and treated her as if she was normal. Moreover her parents were huge members of The organization AHRC to raise money for the mentally disabled. I always wondered how parents dealt with their mentally disabled children? I was first exposed to this shocking film about life in a institution for mentally challenged Children shown on the Million Dollar Movie in New York in the late 1960's, I was about 10 years old. Our movie starts with an upscale couple, the Widdicombes, Ted and Sophie played by Steven Hill and Gena Rowlands. Their new born child Rueben who seems dormant lying in his crib uninterested is questioned by his mother but the Rueben's father claims that another boy didn't speak for years and grew up a success. A few years passed and The Widdecombes have a second child, a girl who is normal yet you see Mr. Widdecombe taking Rueben for IQ tests to various doctors who claim he is under the normal curve in intelligence. The parents realize that their son is a failure as the Father drives at top speed to a mental institution and coerces Rueben out of his car. Our scene shifts to new Players in our tearful story a Dr. Matthew Clark (Burt Lancaster) who runs the facility has strict methods in his teaching approach to the disabled and refuses to coddled them along making them useless in their futures. Lancaster yet strict is restrained throughout and never useless harsh language or acts of violence like you would see in an Oliver Twist institution. Enter our other star the chunky yet vulnerable Jean Hansen played by Judy Garland who is hired as the music teacher in the film. Rueben despondent and discarded by his parents who never come on visiting day adopts Miss Hansen as a surrogate Mom and becomes quite attached to her amongst the consternation on the other students. The pressures of the job get to Miss Hansen who had no prior experience in working with mentally handicapped. As I watched this film I saw the hopelessness and felt sorry for Rueben. I empathized with his frustration throughout the film. I wondered why his parents were so ashamed due to a birth defect which they had no control over. As for the acting I found it refreshing seeing Judy Garland in a serious role and pulling it off with tears and compassion. Burt looked more like a GQ magazine cover model than a headmaster of an institution. His acting was professional yet I felt he was miscast due to his appearance. A thought provoking film that makes you cringe at the sight of the dark side of human existence where these loving children were dealt a bad card by Mother Nature. Today I have a Niece and Nephew who are mentally challenged and discarded by their Father. I take the Father's place and show them love, respect and mostly time together making life more palatable for them. You love your children unconditionally. Furthermore kudos to Stanley Kramer for producing another controversial inspiring film.

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.

**SOME SPOILERS**Hard hitting as well as moving story about a subject matter that at the time, 1963, was almost never mentioned even by those affected by it afflicting a family member, much less made into a major motion picture: mental retardation. As the movie "A Child Is Waiting" begins we see 12 year-old Reuben, Bruce Ritchey, left alone by his father Mr.Ted Widdicombe, Steven Hill, at the steps of a school for the mentally retarded Looking terribly confused and feeling lost. Reuben is borderline retarded which is the worst kind of mental retardation that a young boy like him can suffer from. Since even though Reuben has the mind of a five year old he can still understand that he's different from other normal boys and girls that he went to school with. Even worse Reuben can understand that he's been abandoned by those who love him his parents Ted and Sophie Widdicombe, Gena Rowland.The school is run by psychiatrist Dr. Ben Clark, Burt Lancaster, who can be both as sensitive as a Mother Theresa as well as tough as a US Marine drill sergeant to the boys and girls in the school. It's later when Jean Hansen, Judy Garland, shows up for a job as a music teacher that little Reuben takes a very strong liking toward her. Miss. Hansen immediately connects with Reuben as a surrogate mother who by paying too much attention towards him has her ignoring the other children that's in her class.The movie goes deep into exploring as well as enlightening the audience on what mental retardation not only is but also how so many people back in the early 1960's knew so little about it. The film shows how Miss. Hansen has good but at the same time naively misplaced feeling for those suffering from that disability. Dr. Clark sees right away that Miss. Hansen's feeling for Reuben will only drive him more into the shell that he's already in and warns her not to, which she does anyway, have his mother come over to see him. Which ends with Reuben having an emotional breakdown and then running away from the school grounds.Reuben being found by the local police and brought back to the school has a very distraught Miss. Hansen, who holds herself responsible for what he did, offered to resign her post at he school as music teacher. Instead she's graciously given a second chance by Dr. Clark to stay on in him knowing, in her treatment of Reuben, that her heart is in the right place. Miss. Hansen stopped babying Reuben and started treating him like all the other students in her class and with that he stopped feeling like he was helpless and unable to function on the outside, as well as in the school,on his own. That lead the young boy to finally open up and be able to communicate with both his teachers and the other students in the school.A difficult movie to watch but that in no way takes away the powerful impact that "A Child Is Waiting" has on those watching it. Were and Miss. Hansen are shown by Dr. Clark what happens to children who are overly protected from the world and people around them by those who love them by not letting them go out in the world and live meaningful lives to what ever level their limited mental capacity will bring them.There's a very disturbing but effective scene in an adult sanitarium for the mentally retarded where we see the unfortunates there who were coddled by their parents, like Miss. Hansen was coddling Reuben, who were left on their own when their parents died or were to old and infirm to take care of them anymore. Unlike young children like Reuben they became so severely retarded that there was no chance for them to ever recover. Director John Cassavetes is seen as one of the sanitarium inmates walking around aimlessly waving his hands and talking to himself in an Alfred Hitchcock-like cameo in the film.Burt Lancaster is at his usual best as the hard but well meaning Dr. Clark. Newcomer 12 year-old Bruce Ritchey is both touching and tragic as the retarded young boy who finds a home and family at the school that makes him for the first time in his short life really feel wanted. But it's the former child star and singing sensation Judy Garland as the very sensitive and understanding but somewhat naive music teacher Miss. Hansen who want's to find a meaning and reason to her life, by helping others, thats the real star in "A Child is Waiting". Judy Garland's Miss. Hansen really stands out in the movie as she learns that love if used with emotion not wisdom can be like a double-edge sword. For love to work effectively,like with Reuben,you have to let your mind override your feelings for it to succeed on whom ever your directing it on.