Cassavetes' second flirtation with studio filmmaking (the first being Too Late Blues) was another one-film stand that ended in disaster: near the completion of A Child Is Waiting he was fired from the project following a dispute with producer Stanley Kramer and the film was re-edited without his supervision. Cassavetes repudiated the final cut. But even under these circumstances and in this form A Child Is Waiting is a rare and powerful screen depiction of mentally retarded children, outspoken about the politics of depriving them in favor of "normal" kids. And despite Kramer's cuts, the children-on whom Cassavetes originally lavished his cinematic love and, more importantly, attention-still upstage the stars, Judy Garland and Burt Lancaster. The film opens amidst great emotional turmoil as a little boy, refusing to leave his father's car parked in front of an institution for retarded children, is lured out by the good doctor (Lancaster)-only to watch his father careen madly off. It is a Cassavetes moment; we are spared nothing of the child's pain. There are many such moments but it is somehow fitting that while the children wait, the film focuses for long periods on adult conflicts over treatment methods (Lancaster's tough-love vs. Judy Garland's pity), and the more moving pain of parents (Gena Rowlands and Steven Hill) whose lives are ruined, not by the children but by their refusal to deal with them. Garland is a Cassavetes natural-her most studied lines sound extemporaneous-Lancaster quite the opposite. But it is he who articulates the voice of the director when he bellows, "Everything that concerns this place is personal."