Reviews

Okay, it's not a classic piece of television history, but I have a real soft spot for "High Tor." This has a lot to do with the astonishing natural appeal and sincerity of a 21-year-old Julie Andrews - whom I had never seen before - and Bing Crosby's way of making being Bing Crosby look easy. The plot's jumbled and the technical values are undoubtedly primitive - but it was filmed live, and that's exciting all by itself in 2009. In addition, Maxwell Anderson may not have been the great playwright I thought him at 17, but he was a fine lyricist - he wrote "September Song," and the musical "Lost In The Stars" with Kurt Weill - and the songs he wrote for "High Tor" with Arthur Schwartz have stayed with me for more than fifty years. I've always wished that some company could put out a DVD of this forgotten show, if for nothing else than the pure beauty and plain sweetness of the young Julie Andrews.

At the time of the movie's American release (as Gates of Paris), I had just discovered the songs of Georges Brassens, and I went to see it strictly because he was in it. The original novel was written by a close friend of his, and L'Artiste, the taciturn, solitary bard he plays, seems to have been based very much on Brassens himself. The film turned out to be a delightful, warmhearted work, holding up remarkably well on repeated viewings, and Brassens makes an excellent deadpan foil for the great Pierre Brasseur. And the songs he wrote for the film remain among the best of his classic repertoire. It's a hard movie to find these days, but I recommend it highly.