Director Robert Wise should have heeded the advice of the old song "Don't let the star get in your eyes" when he filmed "Two People."



What might have been a crusty piece on a young deserter facing the music, taken from the viewpoint of a new romance, winds up as a tearjerking tale of young love's frustrations. Granted, Wise had a difficult task. Mixing a treatise on desertion with a love story must be akin to mixing the proverbial oil and water. The final title indicates the result, but not necessarily the original intention.



Evan Bonner, giving himself up after three years of hide and seek, meets Deirdre McCluskey, a top fashion model on assignment in Morocco. She is the prototype of the brittle, disillusioned, restless star. He is the epitome of the reserved, intelligent but also disillusioned man in his
mid-twenties.



Only her need for instant exterior satisfaction brings together these two essentially aliens. The long journey back to the U.S. permits the romance to begin, falter, flourish, falter again and wind up in limbo.



Writer Richard DeRoy is not wholly anti-Vietnam and is often opposed to its alternatives, so a balance of perspective is achieved. His deserter, properly-raised, is able to restore a sense of proportion to the model, but no guarantee can be made that she won't revert to cynicism and shallow living once he leaves.



Some of tbe film's faults turn into virtues. One lies in the casting of Estelle Parsons as the fashion editor. Miss Parsons is too earthy a person to project the sophisticated character, yet her very ingenious quality makes the role different than had it been played, for instance, by Eileen Heckart.



There is a new maturity about Peter Fonda as Bonner. It's an extension of his cycle films, yet with a growing awareness of the world as a place in which be will live with his fellow man not as a rebellious individual. It is inherent in the role and Fonda invests it with sincere belief.



Lindsay Wagner is tbe latest in the line of models-turned-actresses that began with Capucine. Like her predecessors, she is abysmal. But, like them. Miss Wagner strikes home often enough
with honesty, clarity and warmth to make the part work. And a new face was almost a necessity for the role.

JOAN E. VADEBONCOEUR