[2] 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.

[3] It was first presented onstage in Cleveland, Ohio, in December 1936, with Burgess Meredith (Anderson's neighbor in Rockland County)[4] and Peggy Ashcroft in the lead roles.

High Tor was filmed in November 1955 by Desilu Productions at the RKO-Pathé Studio,[12][13] and 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 Conreid, and Everett Sloane starred in the film, produced by Arthur Schwartz, and directed by James Neilson.

[16] 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.

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.

"[21] 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.