Word: travenous
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Macaroni, true to its name, is very much like Mama Leone's spaghetti. The plot starts off solidly enough. Robert Traven (Jack Lemmon) is an American exec on a business trip in Naples, where he had a tour of duty during the Second World War. The stressful monotony of his job has forced him to forget those younger, happier days, until his old friend Antonio (Marcello Mastroianni), intrudes on Robert's busy schedule to remind him of old times. Says Antonio to Robert, "Youva become arid, lika desert." Thus begins Antonio's program of re-hydration...
...name to his ex-girlfriend for the past forty years. These letters paint an incredibly heroic portrait of the mild-mannered American, a portrait that not only grossly exceeds his present stature, but mocks his past life of underachievement. Admidst the idolatry of Antonio's friends and family, Traven feels all the more insignificant...
Heidemann joined Stern in 1951, just three years after it was founded. A photographer turned self-styled investigative reporter, Heidemann found the reclusive mystery writer B. Traven (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) in Mexico and former Gestapo Official Klaus Barbie in Bolivia. But he is far from a star in Hamburg, West Germany's de facto journalistic capital. Says one fellow reporter: "He is a perfectly ordinary reporter, perhaps a little gullible but otherwise bland." Heidemann has one colorful trait: a passion for Nazi memorabilia. He sold his house in Hamburg a decade ago to buy a yacht...
...Ziegel-brenner (The Brickmaker), which raged against all human institutions. Because Marut seemed unaccountably free from wartime censorship, and because he managed to escape before being shot for his revolutionary activities, the rumor arose that he was protected by the German regime. Decades later in Mexico, Marut-Torsvan-Croves-Traven seems to have hinted mischievously that he was the illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm and an American actress. What is so absurd about this roguish fancy is that it cannot be dismissed as so absurd; scandal has long been part of the royal German tradition...
Hohenzollern Prince. In The Mystery of B. Traven (128 pages; William Kaufmann; $6.95), American Journalist Judy Stone tells of a series of interviews with Hal Groves, wangled in the years just before his death. "Forget the man!" he demanded, speaking with a slight German accent. "What does it matter if he is the son of a Hohenzollern prince or anyone else? Write about his works. Write how he is against anything which is forced upon human beings, including Communism or Bolshevism." Hiding behind age and deafness, he stopped just short of admitting that he was Traven, Torsvan or Marut. Deference...