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.

"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 black/white film from the early 1960's, directed by John Cassevetes, had a powerful impact on me almost 50 years later. A semi-documentary, it is honest and respectful and never condescending in its treatment of children with intellectual challenges. Most of all, it shows how adults (teachers and parents) can change in their perceptions and attitudes, thus making it easier for the children to be happy and to learn. The movie stars Bert Lancaster as Dr. Matthew Clark and Judy Garland as Jean Hansen. Clark is the devoted director of a school for the special needs children; his methods are controversial, because he was ahead of his time. Unfortunately, he didn't suffer fools gladly and had little patience for the officials who visit his school. Hansen is a new member of the staff who comes to feel that she has failed. And she has... until Dr. Clark takes her on a tour of a group of adults whose sheltered lives have made them totally helpless. This lesson is a turning point for the thirty-something Miss Hansen, whose life has been a series of false starts. The father of one of the boys, Reuben Widdicombe, also comes to the realization that he can take a positive and hopeful approach instead of feeling sorry for himself.The movie is very instructive as we see people coming to grips with their lives and abandoning the stereotypes. Finally, the children in the movie are a joy to watch. There is a scene near the end where the children stage a pageant for the parents, behaving as children do in these performances and bringing great joy to the audience. There is a valuable lesson in this: there are no normal or abnormal children, only children.

What an odd, unexpected movie this is. Stanley Kramer reunited Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland from his 1961 "Judgment at Nuremberg" for this grim near-docudrama about mentally disabled children in a state-run institution. Again working from a script by Abby Mann, Kramer handed over the directorial reins to John Cassavetes in only his third film. Some of Cassavetes' cinema-verité style is on display here, though there are definitely enough soap opera turns to make you realize that this is ultimately a social message film.The director cast real patients from the Pacific State Hospital in Pomona, California, as most of the handicapped children and in one harrowing scene, as the mentally defective adults. This lends a searing veracity to many of the scenes, and the effect is mesmerizing. Intriguingly, a few are actors, and you are likely to recognize a quick glimpse of Billy Mumy (Will Robinson in TV's "Lost in Space") as one of the children. In the central role of Reuben, a borderline case, a twelve-year old actor named Bruce Ritchey is convincing in evoking the emotional isolation and inward terrorism of his character. The plot revolves around Reuben and the battle of wills over his treatment between Dr. Matthew Clark, the fair-minded director of the mental hospital, and Jean Hansen, a newly hired teacher.Lancaster is such a forthright screen presence that he is automatically credible in the authority role of Clark. Garland, looking bloated and overly made up, has a role that suits her persona at the time. As Jean, she poignantly conveys an unfulfilled maternal instinct especially as she starts to focus most of her time on Reuben to the inadvertent detriment of the other children. Even without an Arlen song, Garland can capture the internal tremolo of a woman whose only avenue for love is the children. Obviously the character was tailored for Garland, as Jean is a former musician trained at Julliard who failed to become a concert pianist. In a defining moment, she does get to teach one simple rhyming song, "Snowflakes", to the children for a Thanksgiving pageant.I like the fact that there is nary a romantic spark between Lancaster and Garland in the story, as they are there to represent opposing perspectives. I only wish there was a bit more emotionalism in the way they argued about it, as it takes an hour for either one of them to raise their voices. Due mostly to Mann's unimpactful, enervating script, the whole film feels mannered in that way, which is what prevents the film from being wholly satisfying. The lack of an emotional pay-off, while realistic, does not provide the closure a viewer needs with such a desultory story.Familiar faces fill the supporting cast. Cassavetes' wife, a young Gena Rowlands, plays Reuben's brittle, guilt-ridden mother Sophie, while Steven Hill plays the emotionally disconnected father who takes Reuben to the hospital only to abandon him. Paul Stewart and John Marley play state officials who need to assess future funding of the school. It's a tough movie to sit through, but the honest depiction of the children and the state of such facilities at the time, along with the low-key sincerity of Lancaster and Garland, make this one worthwhile.