Two Of Zeffirelli's Shakespeare Efforts Here Monday

When Mel Gibson was still in high school, Franco Zeffirelli - the man behind Gibson's new version of ``Hamlet'' - was directing movies based on Shakespeare's plays.

Zeffirelli's youthful version of ``Romeo and Juliet'' won a couple of Academy Awards and became one of the five top-grossing movies of 1969. His 1967 adaptation of ``The Taming of the Shrew,'' with Elizabeth Taylor as Kate and Richard Burton as Petruchio, was also an international success. Monday only, the Neptune is screening them as a double bill.

Both plays had been filmed several times before Zeffirelli took them on, but his versions had a box-office clout not shared even by such high-profile adaptations as Hollywood's 1936 ``Romeo and Juliet,'' starring Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard, or the 1929 ``Taming of the Shrew,'' with Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford.

Zeffirelli transformed both plays into visual feasts, stuffed with gorgeous costumes by Danilo Donati and photographed in a style that suggested Renaissance paintings. He cannily tapped Fellini's favorite composer, Nino Rota, to write the zesty scores for both pictures. Henry Mancini's hit recording of Rota's ``Love Theme From `Romeo and Juliet' '' helped the movie reach a teen-age audience that might otherwise have ignored it.

Instead of the aging Shearer and Howard, Zeffirelli's Romeo was played by 17-year-old Leonard Whiting; his Juliet was the even younger Olivia Hussey. Zeffirelli emphasized the generation gap in his adaptation of the play, drawing the same audience that was flocking to such late-1960s youth films as ``The Graduate.''

``The Taming of the Shrew'' was more traditionally cast, with a famous off-screen couple playing the leads, although it marked the film debut of Zeffirelli discovery Michael York, who also turned up in ``Romeo and Juliet'' (as Tybalt) and achieved greater success in his later career than Whiting or Hussey.

Because Monday is a holiday, the Neptune has scheduled matinees. ``Romeo and Juliet'' plays at 2:20 and 7 p.m., while ``The Taming of the Shrew'' will be screened at 4:50 and 9:30 p.m.