Maxwell Anderson had little interest in television, and considered his adaptation a ' potboiling job'. For this reason, High Tor is sometimes considered the first TV movie.

Because Crosby was uncomfortable with the exigencies of live television, he insisted that it be filmed instead. It was Andrews' first work in a filmed production, and her American television debut. Bing Crosby, Julie Andrews, Nancy Olson, Hans Conreid, and Everett Sloane starred in the film, produced by Arthur Schwartz, and directed by James Neilson.īing Crosby had seen Julie Andrews in her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend, and invited her to appear in High Tor. High Tor was filmed in November 1955 by Desilu Productions at the RKO-Pathé Studio, and broadcast Maon the CBS television network, as a 90-minute episode of the series Ford Star Jubilee.

adapted the play as a made-for-television musical fantasy in 1955, with music by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Anderson. Having lost Van to Lisa, Judith (Nancy Olson) meets the spirit of a sailor ( Everett Sloane) who tells her Van will return to her by morning.Īnderson first considered a musical adaptation of High Tor for television in 1949. 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. In 1942, Anderson helped organize and served as the chairman of the Rockland County Committee To Save High Tor, which helped raise money to purchase the property in 1943 for the creation of a public park. Imaginative and as comic as it is poetic in both spirit and expression, High Tor is a singular accomplishment, giving rare grace to this theatrical season in New York. In its decision the circle celebrates the advent of the first distinguished fantasy by an American in many years. High Tor received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for the best American play of the 1936–1937 season. The production moved to Broadway ten days later in January 1937, where it played 171 performances. It was first presented onstage in Cleveland, Ohio, in December 1936, with Burgess Meredith (Anderson's neighbor in Rockland County) and Peggy Ashcroft in the lead roles. The play also shares the plot element of a ghostly crew of Dutch sailors on the Hudson with Washington Irving's short story Rip Van Winkle.Īnderson began writing the play in May 1936. The story was inspired by the real life controversy over quarrying the palisades along the lower Hudson. The play is named for a summit overlooking the Tappan Zee portion of New York's Hudson River, near where Anderson lived in Rockland County.

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