Word: maniac
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...work of Hitchcock. After the show is over, the viewer may wonder, "Which Hitchcock was that?" Instead of building toward a climax, Stranger strings together three awkward, vaguely related segments. The first concerns a baby sitter (Carol Kane) who is terrorized by phone calls from a homicidal maniac (Tony Beckley). The second, set seven years later, has the maniac loose again, menacing a woman (Colleen Dewhurst) in a bar. The third has him on the trail of the baby sitter, who is now a wife and mother, while a detective (Charles Durning) stalks...
...young H. G. Wells. Stevenson listens skeptically as the inventor displays a time machine he's just built to carry him into the perfect world of the future, but when the police burst in, he steals the machine to escape. Convinced that he's "turned that bloody maniac loose on Utopia!," Wells follows the Ripper to 1979 San Francisco, the time machine having automatically returned to its owner...
...past deeds and dreams of a score of other characters. There are Hannah Palz, a motherly musician-in-residence; Jim Pace, an unscrupulous real estate dealer; Brit Horton, a grizzled farmer; Mercy Grout, the local adventuress. There are also touches of Southern gothic in the Northern woods: a sex maniac murders and mutilates two hikers, and a motorcycle gang leaves one dead and another paralyzed...
...died only 300 yards away from her parents' front door. The bruised, bloodstained corpse bore distinctive wounds, convincing police that a sadistic killer known as the "Yorkshire Ripper" had claimed another victim. Declared George Oldfield, assistant chief constable of the West Yorkshire police: "Clearly, we have a homicidal maniac at large...
...lucky if a dozen people went to hear him. At city hall, he was regarded as a persistent pest who showed up at every tax meeting, drowning out the civilized monologues of his opponents with his battering-ram attacks. "We never knew whether he was a messiah or a maniac," says an aide to one of the supervisors. "He was surly, arrogant and when the mikes were turned off, he just raised his voice so that you never knew the microphone was dead. Many times they had to call the sergeant at arms to persuade him to sit down...