The play was broadcast as an episode of
The Philco Television Playhouse on
NBC, September 10, 1950, with
Alfred Ryder and Felicia Monteleagre in the lead roles.
Musical ) who tells her Van will return to her by morning. Anderson first considered a musical adaptation of
High Tor for television in 1949. He and
John Monks Jr. adapted the play as a made-for-television
musical fantasy in 1955, with music by
Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Anderson.
High Tor was filmed in November 1955 by
Desilu Productions at the
RKO-Pathé Studio. Filming took only 12 days and the show was broadcast March 10, 1956 on the
CBS television network, as a 90-minute episode of the series
Ford Star Jubilee.
Bing Crosby,
Julie Andrews,
Nancy Olson,
Hans Conried, and
Everett Sloane starred in the film, produced by Arthur Schwartz, and directed by
James Neilson.
Bing Crosby had seen
Julie Andrews in her
Broadway debut in
The Boy Friend, and invited her to appear in
High Tor. It was Andrews' first work in a filmed production, and her American television debut. Because Crosby was uncomfortable with the exigencies of
live television, he insisted that it be filmed instead. For this reason,
High Tor is sometimes considered the first
TV movie. Maxwell Anderson had little interest in television, and considered his adaptation a "
potboiling job". Julie Andrews later wrote that she thought her performance was "very stilted", and, "Alas,
High Tor was not a memorable piece, and received only lukewarm reviews." The
song score of the show, with story narration by Bing Crosby, was released by
Decca Records in 1956. The young
Stephen Sondheim also set a musical version, but the author refused permission, so the musical was never produced. Subsequent copyright extension acts mean the music will be illegal until 2042.
Plot of the musical version Van Van Dorn (Crosby) owns a summit ("High Tor") overlooking the Hudson River in New York. Van Dorn is under pressure to sell his real estate, and, at the same time, is having doubts about his impending marriage to Judith (Olson). Judith leaves him because she feels that he should sell High Tor, as the profits would provide for their future. A freak rock slide traps Van Dorn and the real estate agents on High Tor; as Van searches for help, he meets the spirit of a Dutch girl by the name of Lisa (Andrews). Lisa and the spirits of Dutch sailors have inhabited High Tor for over 300 years since they were killed in a shipwreck. Lisa then falls in love with Van. Songs include "Once Upon a Long Ago", a duet for Crosby and Andrews, "Sad is the Life of a Sailor's Wife", a solo for Andrews, and "When You're in Love".
Song list • John Barleycorn • A Little Love, a Little While • Living One Day at a Time • Once Upon a Long Ago • Sad Is the Life of the Sailor's Wife • When You're in Love See also
High Tor (album) Reception The reviews were not good although the show did achieve a rating of 29.4 against the competition of a
Jimmy Durante show (13.7).
Daily Variety opined, inter alia: "Somewhere in the double translation - from stage to tv-pix terms and from dramatic to musical comedy form - much of what made ‘High Tor’ a Broadway success seems to have got lost. What emerges on the home screens in this film, said to have cost upwards of $500,000, is essentially, a listless exercise, with rather undistinguished musical and murky philosophising, leavened only by the stingiest pinches of comedy."
Jack Gould writing in
The New York Times said, "Bing Crosby badly miscast himself in undertaking a filmed musical version of Maxwell Anderson’s fantasy, “High Tor,” presented on Saturday evening over Channel 2. The motion picture, especially made for television use, was embarrassingly awkward and inept, a dismaying “quickie” unworthy of the Old Groaner’s time and talents. The trade journal Broadcasting-Telecasting gave production costs as “approximately $250,000” and wrote, “If anything was proved [by this production], it was that someone was mistaken in his judgment of what is satisfying entertainment….Maybe the play originally made sense. Saturday’s musical version did not. Its fantasy was all right, and so was its slapstick. Bing Crosby and the cast are all first rate artists. But the ingredients just wouldn’t blend. Music, if there had been more of it, could have carried the senseless action along. But this weird comedy was neither musical nor play. Whatever it was, it was unworthy of Mr. Crosby and colleagues.” ==Radio adaptation==