Although Crowther went on to say Hayward was "a bit on the unbelievable side" in the role initially announced for Jeanne Crain, her "improbability" worked well for her as a city-born young bride who finds herself taking on the duties of a rural preacher's wife. In a part originally intended for Henry Fonda, William Lundigan got good reviews for his convincing work as the preacher whose religious calling puts him and his wife through many hardships.
The film was adapted by Atlanta native Lamar Trotti (Young Mr. Lincoln, 1939; Cheaper by the Dozen, 1950) from the 1910 autobiographical novel by Corra Harris, A Circuit Rider's Wife, one of the production's working titles. Veteran director Henry King (In Old Chicago, 1937; The Song of Bernadette, 1943; Twelve O'Clock High, 1949) is said to have also done uncredited work on the screenplay. King and Trotti, both interested in American historical pictures, worked together on eight films, including the Oscar-winning Wilson (1944). This was the first of four movies in which King directed Hayward, the second being another religious themed release and the bigger moneymaker this same year, David and Bathsheba (1951). The following year, Trotti scripted the picture that earned Hayward her third Academy Award nomination, With a Song in My Heart (1952).
According to information in Twentieth Century-Fox archives, the studio also considered using a 1941 short story, "The Preacher Calls the Dance," by John W. Thomason, Jr. as source material, in addition to Harris' book. Other than a single character's name, however, none of that material made it into the finished screenplay, a fact revealed in an archived studio telegram from 1951. Studio records also note that director Jean Negulesco provided a "memo, research notes, prologue and story" for the project in early 1949, but there is no evidence that this was included either.
Location shooting took place mostly in Habersham and White county, Georgia, home to the towns of Helen and Cleveland. According to an industry trade paper during production, the film was originally to be shot in black and white but was switched to color on the orders of Fox chief, Darryl F. Zanuck.
In June 1950, a Hollywood Reporter news item noted that director King used all the members of the University of Georgia baseball team for sequences filmed in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Producers found the old car they needed for the film in Westminster, South Carolina. The owner of the 1912 Overland had restored it to running condition and was hired to appear in the movie as the driver since no one else knew how to operate a car of that vintage.
Ten months after the film's release, Hayward and Lundigan reprised their roles in an October 1951 broadcast of Lux Radio Theater. Corra Harris published a sequel to her novel called Circuit Rider's Widow, serialized in the Saturday Evening Post like its predecessor. It was considered for production but never made.
Production on I'd Climb the Highest Mountain was the first time Hayward visited the state that would one day become her home, but already she was warmly received by the locals, many of whom appeared as extras, and later during the film's premier in Atlanta by the state senate, which passed a resolution making her an "adopted daughter of Georgia."
Director: Henry King
Producer: Lamar Trotti
Screenplay: Lamar Trotti, based on the novel The Circuit-Rider's Wife
Cinematography: Edward Cronjager
Editing: Barbara McLean
Art Direction: Maurice Ransford, Lyle Wheeler
Music: Sol Kaplan
Cast: Susan Hayward (Mary Thompson), William Lundigan (Rev. William Thompson), Rory Calhoun (Jack Stark), Barbara Bates (Jenny Brock), Alexander Knox (Tom Salter)
by Rob Nixon
