Noted filmmaker screens "Around the World - One Man's Journey" for World Travel Series

The most popular and well-traveled filmmaker to visit Rockefeller Arts Center as part of the World Travel Series returns on Saturday, March 24 with a retrospective of his award-winning career.

Doug Jones will personally present his film “Around the World - One Man’s Journey” on March 24 at 7:30 p.m. in King Concert Hall on the SUNY Fredonia campus. It will be his 10th appearance in the series, which began in 1983. More than 5,000 people have attended the films presented by Mr. Jones at Rockefeller Arts Center.

As a boy growing up in Kansas City, Mr. Jones would have had little reason to expect to see much of the world – save for his father’s job.

Harold Jones was an engine inspector for Trans World Airlines — the legendary airline of Howard Hughes that traveled the world from its home base at Kansas City. As an employee of the airline, the elder Mr. Jones could take his family anywhere in the world TWA flew at no charge. Thus, Doug Jones had the opportunity to travel the globe from a young age.

Mr. Jones’ earliest travels were to Los Angeles on the Lockheed Constellation, the elegant four-propeller airplane designed to meet Hughes’ dreams of transporting passengers high above the weather. Los Angeles would later become his home – and fittingly, the starting point for “Around the World – One Man’s Journey.”

As a college student at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, Mr. Jones continued to travel as often as he could. On college breaks, he took TWA flight No.1, which started in Kansas City and went to Hong Kong – the long way around with eight stops and 26 hours. It was a trip he made more than once.

This early exposure to the world was the reason that he began producing travelogues in 1968. Over four decades later, he has produced a visual travel memoir of his 40 years filming the world. “Around the World — One Man’s Journey” is a retrospective of a lifetime of travel by one of America’s best-known travel filmmakers.

Drawn from over one half million feet of motion picture film, shot on six continents and in 60 countries, the film follows a circuitous route around the world stopping in the best known travel destinations. Mr. Jones filmed many places more than once over the course of several decades. The film shows the changes in the world and the changes in photography as well.

Highlights of the film include The Taj Mahal, The Kamakura Buddha, The Pyramids, The Treasures of Tutankhamen, The Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, The Berlin Wall, Iguazu Falls, Machu Picchu, The Great Wall of China and the glaciers of Alaska.

Destinations as diverse as Hollywood, Hong Kong, Moscow and the Amazon are featured in this very personal film.

Mr. Jones calls “Around the World – One Man’s Journey” a “travel memoir” and his description is accurate. Throughout the film, he shares personal stories tied to the locations.

Touring the mountain range of Alaska in a Cessna airplane proved to be such an inspiring experience that Mr. Jones said he was motivated to become a pilot himself.

“I had never seen mountains so close,” he recalled.

Another unique experience came in Egypt in 1977 when Mr. Jones was allowed unaccompanied access to the Treasures of Tutankhamen.

“I was up close and alone,” he said of the footage he shot of the inner coffin of King Tutankhamen, which is made from 250 pounds of gold.

Mr. Jones shares numerous personal thoughts – from his belief that New Zealand is “the single most beautiful country in the world” to the fact that Venice is his favorite city.

Quoting Burton Holmes, the traveler, photographer and filmmaker credited as the “father of the travelogue,” Mr. Jones stated that, “To travel is to possess the world.”

“That’s as true today as ever,” Mr. Jones said. “I’ve seen the world change in four decades and most of the change has been for the better.”