A Child Is Waiting (1963) on Netflix
Jean Hansen takes a job at a state school for intellectually disabled children and clashes with its director, Dr. Matthew Clark. She grows close to Reuben Widdicombe, whose parents never visit.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.2/103,967 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jean Hansen, searching for direction and purpose, applies to teach at Crawthorne State Training School, a New Jersey institution for children with intellectual disabilities and emotional disturbances. Her friend Mattie, already a teacher there, recommends her, and the director, Dr. Matthew Clark, hires her to teach music. Jean considers Clark's training methods stricter than they need to be and believes they do not reach Reuben Widdicombe, a twelve-year-old student. She grows close to Reuben and is heartbroken to learn that neither of his divorced parents has come to see him since he was dropped off two years earlier, though he still waits for his mother on every visitation day. Jean asks Clark for permission to write to Reuben's mother; he refuses, and, deciding she has grown too attached to the boy, reassigns her to a different dormitory.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Child Is Waiting (1963)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Stanley Kramer fired director John Cassavetes and recut A Child Is Waiting after post-production disagreements, which Cassavetes blamed on his own strong feelings about the subject matter.
- Cassavetes disowned the finished film, but said after its release that he did not think Kramer's version was so bad, just "a lot more sentimental than mine."
- Most of the students in the film were played by children with actual mental disabilities from Pacific State Hospital in Pomona, California; Stanley Kramer said of them, "They surprised us every day in reaction and what they did."
- Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor were all considered for the role of Jean Hansen, which went to Judy Garland, who had previously worked with Lancaster and Kramer on Judgment at Nuremberg (1961).
- Producer Stanley Kramer modeled the film's school on the real Vineland Training School in New Jersey; he said he wanted to bring the plight of mentally and emotionally disturbed children to the filmgoing public.
