Andre de la Varre's Screen Traveler series takes us o Damascus and Jerusalem, showing us these ancient cities in workmanlike black and white. Unlike better remembered travelogues like James A. Fitzpatrick's TRAVELTALKS, it's not in color, the music on offer is a pipe organ rather than an orchestra, and de la Varre seems more interested in showing us the way ordinary people live, rather than the spectacle that might attract tourists.

THis we see cobblers making shoes from old tires, rather than princes, street bakers and the flies that crawl over their wares, and old women at the Wailing Wall, in threadbare shawls. Fitzpatrick's work was handsomer, better put together and shallow. If you want to see what was going on in this time, this is a better seies for you.