A 70-minute documentary film featuring a Route 66 journey by an Italian traveler was recently released on YouTube.
Corrado Parlati, editor of MentiSommerse.it, an independent cultural publication based in Naples, Italy, drove Route 66 from end to end this summer and released the documentary, titled “Route 66 – The Guardians of the Mother Road,” online on Sept. 12.
Much of it is in Italian, with English subtitles if you click on the closed-captions button of the video.
Twelve Americans appear, including Mirna Delgadillo of Seligman, Arizona; Harley Russell of Erick, Oklahoma; and historians and authors Jim Ross and Jim Hinckley.
Parlati has a good grasp of the history of places and people along Route 66.
One postscript: The version of the film I watched a few days ago was marred by unnatural-sounding AI overdubs automatically imposed by YouTube.
Parlati subsequently turned off the AI, and the viewer experience is now much better.
(Screen-capture image from the film at the Wagon Wheel Motel gift shop in Cuba, Missouri)