Playwright Maxwell Anderson first considered a musical adaptation of "High Tor" for television in 1949. In mid-1954 CBS Chairman William Paley approached Anderson about producing the play for his newly planned live-action, 90-minute anthology series, Ford Star Jubilee (1955). Anderson and writer John Monks Jr. decided to adapt the play as a musical fantasy, with music composed by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Anderson, and starring Bing Crosby. Crosby was not comfortable with doing live television--especially 90 minutes of it nonstop--and insisted that the production be filmed. His production office was on the Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood, and he did not want to use the CBS studio in Hollywood nor the New York studio for the shooting. Desilu Studios--formerly the RKO Pictures lot--was across the street from the Paramount lot, and an agreement was reached to shoot the production there. CBS wanted to shoot it on videotape, as it normally did with live shows, but Crosby didn't want that. He reached a deal with CBS that would result in his covering the additional expense of shooting the production on film, and any associated costs. In the end the show's budget reached $450,000, making it the most expensive TV production up to that time (Crosby himself was reported to have been paid $375,000). Shot in November of 1955 by cinematographer Lester Shorr and directors James Neilson and Franklin J. Schaffner--all of whom had previously worked on both live and filmed shows--it was broadcast on March 10, 1956, to lukewarm reviews. The show's score was released that year on Decca Records.
"High Tor" is a 1936 play by Maxwell Anderson (b.1888-1959, 70). Twenty years after the original Broadway production, Maxwell Anderson adapted the stage play into a television musical play with stage and film composer Arthur Schwartz (b.1900-1984, 83), providing the score. Presented on CBS's "The Ford Star Jubilee" in a 90 minute "color film" television special, transmitted electronically as a broadcast presentation starring Bing Crosby.
This "35mm-camera color Hollywood filmed production" was the only television special NOT performed as a normally scheduled "90 minute-live-color electronic-broadcast-transmission in front of a live studio audience in a CBS video studio facility".
The play "High Tor" is named for a summit overlooking the Tappan Zee portion of New York's Hudson River, near where Anderson lived in Rockland County. The story was inspired by the real life controversy over quarrying the palisades along the lower Hudson. 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.
Anderson (at age 58) began writing the play in May 1936. The play "High Tor" was first presented on stage in Cleveland, Ohio, in December 1936. Maxwell Anderson's neighbor in Rockland County, actor Burgess Meredith and Peggy Ashcroft appeared in the stage play's lead roles. The Cleveland production moved to Broadway ten days later on January 9, performed through June, 1937, where it played 171 performances at the Martin Beck Theatre.
Anderson won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for the best American play of the 1936-1937 season. The award included this citation: 'In its decision the circle celebrates the advent of the first distinguished fantasy by an American in many years. 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 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.
Stephen Sondheim also set a musical version of the play "High Tor," but Maxwell Anderson refused permission, so the Sondheim musical adaptation was never produced. Subsequent copyright extension acts mean the Stephen Sondheim music will be illegal until 2042.
"High Tor" was first broadcast on TV in 1950 (High Tor (1950)) with Alfred Ryder and Felicia Montealegre in the lead roles.
Bing Crosby's solo recordings from his radio days to the end of his life established him as the most recorded voice in the history of recorded music.