Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.

Can you guess who said that in the 80s?

No, it’s not one of the few lines 18-year-old Cruise has in his film debut in 1981 with Franco Zeffirelli’s Endless Obsession, I mean Love, cough, cough. His minute portrayal of a deranged teenage arsonist/stripping soccer player frankly gave us one of the rare high points of the movie with his story of how he once committed arson to become a hero to a girl by then putting it out.

If you guessed Brooke Shields, the co-star of this Razzie Award classic, you know your 80s! (Lisa_J, is it too late to wish you a happy birthday 80s style?) The stupidity of that quote, like this movie, could have only come from that decade.

Only 15 years old here, Brooke as Jade and a high school senior named David, played intensely by Martin Hewitt (General Hospital 1979), fall into a ‘first love’ that quickly consumes their every waking thought. At first her family isn’t concerned about the relationship that seems very sweet and they party as usual with the father (a very fun Don Murray, Peggy Sue Got Married) playing a wild trumpet, hordes of smoking/drinking kids and the singer of “Endless Love” whining away.

My biker sweetie is digging the movie so far, thinking the hippie parents are so cool. The barefoot mother, creepily unearthed by Shirley Knight (Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood), even watches Jade and David making love with a dreamy smile and doesn’t tell her husband.

When Jade’s older brother Keith, zealously pulled off by Jimmy (James) Spader, and their father discover that David is sleeping over and sneaking off on his bike at dawn, their shock and hostility towards David know no bounds. For the record, when my sweetie and I realized Jade was only 15, the sex wasn’t okay, either. David refuses to accept his measly 30-day banishment until school-and his finals!-are over and decides to resort to the depths of his crazy friend, the arsonist.

But the impulsive plan backfires on him. In an unbelievably bad scene the stately, two-story house ignites all at once and it’s the Towering Inferno. David tries to save Jade, but is smacked in the face by Keith and left unconscious on the floor. But the father, who wants David dead after this incident, mercifully saves him.

Now David stays out of prison by going to a sanitorium for five years with no contact with Jade or her family, but he writes her (where? They moved when their house burned down) and his parents take pity on him after two years.

Bet you don’t need two guesses to know what he does first with his freedom! It seems he has become either an ace detective or a psychic while in lock-up with the loonies (he was haunted constantly by memories of her and sees and hears her everywhere). Soon we find out how insane the rest of the characters still are.


Final Commentary


Like a rollercoaster that never stops, my sweetie and I couldn’t stop watching it. We both hated the confusing emotions and actions of the characters that came out of nowhere many times, but we actually had more fun shaking our heads, laughing at and ridiculing this belch of hyper teen angst, after the belch of interminable teen erotica, than we’ve had with any other more respectable movie lately.

In her role in Blue Lagoon (1980), Shields became the first ever “Winner” of a Worst Actress Razzie Award. She went on to win several more Razzies and in 2000 was nominated as Worst Actress of the Century.

You can find that and other intriguing trivia and quotes at her profile on imdb.cm. Quite so she isn’t much better in Endless Love, nor is Hewitt a particularly engaging actor, although his psychoticness and faithfulness to Jade through all obstacles compels one to watch him to see what happens to him.

KISS and Blondie helped out the soundtrack quite a bit, but the title song was pretty decent the first time I heard it. Also I really enjoyed the facial expressiveness, the explosiveness and verbal delivery of Don Murray and James Spader (Pretty In Pink, The Watcher). Shirley Knight, though, dragged the near-two hour movie out with some unnecessary scenes that were meant to create tension, I’m sure. Screenwriter Judith Rascoe, basing the movie on Scott Spenser’s novel, no doubt meant for us to be on the edge of our seats, either crying or getting ready to cry.

I did not cry once and neither did my sweetie. We could easily predict pretty much everything that happened after the fire, but that’s what made it such an easy target for razzing!

Endless Love sticks out like a huge zit on the filmography of director Zeffirelli, perhaps better known for the later Jesus of Nazareth television mini-series. My theory is that he himself was obsessed with the thick browed, underaged Shields and so sought redemption through religion. There isn’t too much nudity by today’s standards, though. Seeing a naked boy draped over a girl is about the most excitement you’ll get, plus whatever you imagine.

Tom Cruise, most recently of Minority Report fame, would probably rather not have this movie ‘expunged from his Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)’ and instead be only remembered for his meatier role in the compelling T.A.P.S later that year, but epinioner Simply_Crispy asked his write-off participants to expunge from the resumes of the best movie stars of today and that’s what I did.

Sorry, Tom! I’m glad you graced the movie even if you aren’t.

Please check out Simply_Crispy’s profile page for more fun write-off entries.




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