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A Child Is Waiting (1963)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
6/24
6/24:
The three biggest mistakes of A Child Is Waiting are letting a normal child actor play an intellectually disabled character,
casting Judy Garland in the first place, and making Burt Lancaster director of the state institute.
I've worked with intellectually disabled children for a long time and can tell right away that Reuben Widdicombe isn't among
them. It's quite frankly annoying because I predicted he'll do something "miraculous" at the end. He did so by talking for
the first time. Instead, I prefer Burt Lancaster to work with two to four kids who are genuinely disabled to bring out the
spontaneity. He's strong enough of an actor to deal with whatever happens.
As for Judy Garland, I'm surprised to see her acting this late. In fact, 1963 marked the final year of her career. On screen, she
looked too fragile and was ready to go to pieces. If it was up to me to hire a teacher's aide or whatever, I would've passed on
Judy Garland's character and sought out a more stable person. By the way, doting on one child is strongly discouraged; what about
the others who need attention, too?
I wish Burt Lancaster was a teacher instead. It should give him more flexibility with the material, so he can demonstrate what it's
like to work with intellectually disabled children. Hence, the whole movie is a huge missed opportunity. In spots, he's shown
playing basketball and teaching speech to them. That's great, but there should be more of him with them including grooming, eating
and drinking, going to the bathroom, disciplining, dealing with their parents, keeping track of educational/life skill goals and
progress, and so on. It never happens that a major movie star does this, especially when he's surrounded by a cohort
of truly disabled kids.
It's interesting when Burt Lancaster said, "We can all suffer from it, like the sister of the president of the United States."
I thought that was a secret at the time. He meant JFK's sister Rosemary who was born mentally retarded and had behavior
issues. Her father, Joseph Kennedy, had her lobotomized without his wife' knowledge simply because she wasn't Kennedy enough.
Afterwards, he abandoned her at some institution in Wisconsin under an alias. Prior to the lobotomy operation, the family
pretended she was normal but slow in catching up with her siblings, and she was actually not that severely disabled, being able
to read and write at 4th grade level.
All in all, although well-meaning, A Child Is Waiting is too average to shed light on the care and education of
intellectually disabled children.