Mad Pash

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

ENDLESS LOVE Directed by Franco Zeffirelli Screenplay by Judith Rascoe

She is, as no one needs to be told, very pretty indeed. But with her flat little voice and her skinny emotional range, one has to wonder: Is Brooke Shields truly obsession worthy? And can she carry, commercially, another movie about another kind of obsession? The answer is no. One simply refuses to believe that even a totally innocent adolescent could be so smitten by this dull if comely girl that he would burn down her house because her father, defending his Oedipal turf, orders him away for a month to cool off.

The love-maddened youth is played by one Martin Hewitt, an unknown chosen for some reason over the customary 5,000 applicants for the job in a talent hunt. He can pout and look earnest; one could almost indulge his presence in a high school production of Romeo and Juliet. But he is, at best, a puppy lover, not someone who can portray a lad nurturing his passion for two years in an insane asylum and emerging to find and reclaim his love in the face of all opposition.

Still, the children are not solely to blame for this dreary adaptation of Scott Spencer's novel, which made such an interesting case for madness in love, demonstrating that it is preferable--whatever the cost--to safe "meaningful relation ships." Director Zeffirelli seems far too distant from his lovers. He is too concerned with establishing the sweetness and beauty of their affair, not enough with emphasizing what is at its center: an irresistible sexual magnetism that can be so surprising to youngsters that it overwhelms them. Worse, in attempting to suggest the play of memory and inner consciousness, Zeffirelli and Screenwriter Rascoe resort to such stale devices as flashbacks, hallucinatory episodes and ghostly voiceovers. There is even a moment when the action comes to a halt and, yes, a title song is played while all the actors go moony-faced. About the only cliche of '40s psychodrama movies that is missing is a dream sequence by Dali. If the producers want this one to succeed in today's market, they will have to retitle it. Creature from the Blue Lagoon Meets Ordinary People ought to doit.

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