A Child Is Waiting is a 1963 American drama film directed by John Cassavetes, produced by Stanley Kramer, and written by Abby Mann based on his 1957 Studio One teleplay of the same name.

In New Jersey, Jean Hansen, a thirty-something woman who has been struggling to find direction and purpose in her life, applies for a job at Crawthorne State Training School, an institution for intellectually disabled and emotionally disturbed children.

Her friend Mattie, who is already a teacher at Crawthorne, gives her a good recommendation, so the director of the school, Dr. Matthew Clark, hires Jean to teach music, as she once studied to be a concert pianist at Juilliard.

He said he wanted to bring the plight of mentally and emotionally disturbed children to the filmgoing public and try "to throw a spotlight on a dark-ages type of social thinking which has tried to relegate the subject of retardation to a place under the rocks."

[4] Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor were considered for the role of Jean Hansen, which ultimately went to Judy Garland, who previously had worked with Lancaster and Kramer on the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg.

[citation needed] When original director Jack Clayton was forced to withdraw because of a scheduling issue, he was replaced by John Cassavetes, who was still under contract to Paramount Pictures, on the recommendation of screenwriter Abby Mann.

In a contemporary review in The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: Don't go to see it expecting to be agreeably entertained or, for that matter, really uplifted by examples of man's nobility.

The drama of social service, written by Abby Mann to convey a general illustration of the philosophy and kind of work done in modern institutions for retarded children, is presented in such conventional terms that it has no more impact or validity than an average television-doctor show.

To them and to John Cassavetes, who directed them with notable control [...] we must be thankful that what might have been harrowing and even distasteful beyond words to behold comes out as a forthright, moving documentation of most unfortunate but hopeful youngsters in a school.

From the graphic accounts of how their teachers treat them and train them, how the rule of firm, realistic and unemotional discipline is preserved, and from the simplifications of theory that appear in the dialogue, one should learn a great deal from this picture – all of which should be helpful and give hope.

"[1] In a more positive review, Variety called the film "a poignant, provocative, revealing dramatization", and added: "Burt Lancaster delivers a firm, sincere, persuasive and unaffected performance as the professionally objective but understanding psychologist who heads the institution.