Bob Friers: Central and South American Correspondent For Booth Newspapers

              Figure

Three Adventure Filled Lectures



★ 
CENTRAL AMERICA ON FOOT


★ 
WHEELS OVER THE ANDES


★ 
PAN-AMERICAN PROSPECTS




COMPLETELY ILLUSTRATED WITH 16 M. M. MOTION PICTURES IN NATURAL COLOR


BOB FRIERS


CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT FOR BOOTH NEWSPAPERS




Tells of His Many Years Among Our Good Neighbors As a
 . . . .




VAGABOND REPORTER IN LATIN AMERICA




Figure

(Left)Footsore and penniless, Bob reached the beautiful Taj Mahal after hiking across half of India.  Finding the famous pool too shallow for swimming, he compromised by washing his sox and cooling his aching feet.  Inside, an old Moslem priest blessed him and predicted better fortune for the rest of his trip.


(Below)The war was breaking out in Europe on the very day that Bob wandered into this deserted city.  He toted a gun because the Arab tribesmen were in revolt.  Attacked by thieves near the Euphrates river, he fired on them and escaped to a British army post on the Persian Gulf.



Figure




S
TILL in his mid-twenties, Bob Friers has already seen action enough for a half-dozen lifetimes, wandering all over the face of the globe as a vagabond reporter, photographer, and adventurer.  He made his first trip alone when he was twelve.  At 18 he had covered every main highway on this continent by hitch-hiking and riding freights.




His love of roads and travel led him to become deeply interested in the proposed 
dream highway
 that was some day to connect Alaska with Argentina.  To broaden his scope, he enrolled in the University of Michigan, finally doing graduate work in Latin American history.




Many semesters found him wandering far from the classroom, hiking along the Pan-American Highway in Mexico or Central America.  One year he walked to Alaska.




In 1939, his college room-mate bet him $5 that he couldn't thumb his way around the world.  With $82 in his pocket, Bob crossed to Europe on an Irish freighter, slipped into Germany and smuggled out two thousand dollars worth of cameras.  Then he fled down the Balkans, rode a camel over the Arabian desert, and hiked into India.  The British objected to his driving a munitions truck up the Burma road and deported him to Singapore.  Broke and sick, he signed on an American freighter and came home across the Pacific.  The New York Times called him the 
world's champion of vagabonds.




Since his return, he has been working as Latin American correspondent for Booth Newspapers, centering his activities in those countries within a thousand mile radius of the Panama Canal.  Thus he has had an unusual opportunity to study and report on this area that is today so vital to hemispheric defense.




The young 
Vagabond Reporter
 has done a real service in practical Pan-americanism.  His trip over the Andes and his work here are things entirely new and different.




—EL COMERCIO Quito, Ecuador




Robert Friers is exceptionally well acquainted with the Pan-American Highway.  A series of his articles on this timely and important subject starts tomorrow in this paper.




—EL COLOMBIANO Medellin, Colombia




Figure


Turning tables on the nosy Japs, Bob films their spy ship, 
Amano Maru,
 in the waters north of the Panama Canal.




B
OB FRIERS is rapidly becoming the most popular young platform star in America. His romantic adventures and striking personality have already caused many to compare him with his boyhood idol, Richard Halliburton.  But he tells more than an adventure story.  A keen observer and student of the social problems, peoples, and customs of Latin America, he brings real and timely information with every lecture.  He has had his own radio program in the USA, as well as several special programs in Central and South America.  Twice he has been featured by the British Broadcasting Company.




He is an expert photographer, having sold pictures to Life, Look, and other leading magazines and metropolitan newspapers.  Besides filming the unique motion pictures for his own lectures, he has produced several newsreels.  Many of his recent pictures have been filmed through special permission granted by the United States War Department.




WHAT THEY SAY …



Elgin Forum:
  He is not just another tourist hitting the beaten paths, but is a real seeker after strange and hidden peoples and places.  His lecture and fine color motion pictures were most enthusiastically received.  I believe Bob Friers to be the logical successor to Richard Halliburton.




Dr. William Rainey Bennett, Director




Colorado Museum of Natural History:
  Bob Friers was excellent.  He is a good speaker and has a good story to tell, so that it makes a pleasing lecture for almost any type of audience.  I was surprised at the excellence of his color film.  Very rarely do travellers secure such good exposures.




A. M. Bailey, Director




University of Michigan:
  The students picked this as one of the year's best programs.  Bob Friers' lecture and motion pictures of the wilds through which the Pan-American Highway will someday run are a definite contribution to-ward an understanding of Latin America.  He really knows what he is talking about.




Prof. E. A. Mercado, Director, Sociedad Hispanica




University of Dayton:
 He is a fluent, interesting speaker with a fine command of language—not a dull moment in the hour's talk.  The movies were fine—a good choice of sequence and good color photography.  I'm glad we had him.




F. J. Friedel, S.M. Dean




St. Louis Travel and Adventure Series:
  Bob Friers appeared on our Series last evening and was very well received.  He makes his story both real and interesting and his pictures are unusually good.  I'm sure we'll want him back next year.




Roy G. Smith, Chairman




Chicago Adventurers Club:
  We thoroughly enjoyed hearing about his adventures.  His appearance before our club was easily one of the highlights of the year.  We take pleasure in recommending him to anyone looking for a real adventure program.




Capt. George Elliott Nightingale, Curator and Historian






VIVID PROGRAMS BRINGING YOU THE
REAL FLAVOR OF THE 
OTHER AMERICAS

Completely Illustrated With 16 M.M. Motion Pictures in Natural Color


Figure


Even a hitch in a bullock cart was welcome when Bob hiked through Nicaragua.



Figure


Chico was Bob's only companion on his solo motor trip across South America.





★ 
CENTRAL AMERICA ON FOOT



Adventures on a hitch-hiking trip through Southern Mexico and the 
banana republics
 of Central America.  To the Panama Canal Zone over what will be the most vital military road on earth.  Rides with trucks, horses, autos, burros, motorcycles, dugouts, bicycles, and airplanes give Bob real contacts with the average citizen.  At considerable risk he secured pictures of Jap spy ships and would-be air bases for bombing the Canal.  Posing sometimes as a German, Bob got remarkable reactions.  Full of adventure and surprises with an occasional explosion of political dynamite.





★ 
WHEELS OVER THE ANDES



All alone on a motor expedition from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific.  Thirty-six hundred miles over South America's great Simon Bolivar Highway through Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.  Bob picked up fifty-one native hitch-hikers, and from their stories he found what they really think of us and of world conditions.  See the biggest oil exporting field on earth, later attacked by Nazi submarines.  Treacherous roads over the Andes, shimmering mountain lakes, and snow capped peaks on the Equator.  Monkeyshines with hitchhiker Chico who furnished laughs and trouble everywhere.





★ 
PAN-AMERICAN PROSPECTS



The youth of Latin America — see them undergoing centuries of change in a single generation.  During the years that Bob has lived, worked, and played with them, he has sensed the thoughts and ideals that are completely missed by the casual tourist.  Social life and customs of old Spain are changing under influence of Hollywood.  Glamorous stars and movie struck youngsters.  Romance . . . . as dashing Latin lovers woo their dark eyed senoritas.  Real thrills and excitement as you take part in their hair-raising sports.  An entirely unique program for any lecture platform.





FOR INFORMATION WRITE



BOB FRIERS SAGINAW. MICH.
Or REDPATH BUREAU CHICAGO, ILLINOIS