Everything about High Tor totally explained
High Tor is a made-for-television
musical fantasy, broadcast
March 10,
1956 on the
CBS Television network, as an episode of the series
Ford Star Jubilee.
Bing Crosby,
Julie Andrews,
Nancy Olson,
Hans Conreid, and
Keenan Wynn starred in the film, directed by
Franklin Schaffner and
James Neilson, and based on a
1937 play by well-known playwright
Maxwell Anderson.
Bing Crosby had seen
Julie Andrews in her
Broadway debut in
The Boy Friend (in which she was still appearing at the time), and invited her to appear in the film. Music was by
Arthur Schwartz, with lyrics by Anderson. Because Crosby was uncomfortable with the exigencies of
live television, he insisted that it be filmed. For this reason,
High Tor is often considered the first
TV movie.
Plot
Van Van Dorn (Crosby) owns a mountain ("High Tor") near the
Hudson River on the
Tappan Zee. 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 realtors 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. Of course, Lisa 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".
Trivia
Reference to
High Tor is made in the following text written by music composer
John Cage in his series of one-minute
Indeterminacy lectures:
» ::Music and mushrooms: Two words next to each other in many dictionaries. Where did he write The Three-Penny Opera? Now he’s buried below the grass at the foot of High Tor. Once the season changes from summer to fall, given sufficient rain, or just the mysterious dampness that’s in the earth, mushrooms grow there, carrying on, I'm sure, his business of working with sounds. That we've no ears to hear the music the spores shot off from basidia make, obliges us to busy ourselves microphonicaly.
(External Link
)Further Information
Get more info on 'High Tor'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://high_tor.totallyexplained.com">High Tor Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
