The Incredible Story of an American Legend, Burton Holms
A golden star for Cinematography on Hollywood’s “Walk of Fame” bears the name of Burton Holms. He invented the travel film industry, coined the word “travelogue,” and raised travel documentaries to an art form. In his time, he was the world’s #1 tourist and theatrical attraction across America. Season to season, for six decades starting in the 1890’s, evening performances were black-tie affairs; tickets to his lectures then cost $1.50, when Hollywood movies cost a dime. Holmes was a true pioneer and a legend. Nowadays, he is an almost forgotten American Icon.

The documentary film, “Travelogue Man” will display, reveal and chronicle the story of Burton Holmes, the great American showman. The film will take viewers to a time before air travel, movies, radio or television, long before globalization and mass-tourism, when traveling abroad “for pleasure” was, indeed, something special.

“I wonder if those in the future who view these images upon the magic screen will appreciate the value of motion-pictures as a means of recording life as it is lived in this century. That those who live in the next may actually see the living figures of men
and women who lived in the same world a hundred years before?”
Burton Holmes, Korea – 1899