Time After Time

An idealistic HG Wells (McDowell) chases the villainous Jack the Ripper (Warner) when he escapes into the 20th century - specifically, San Francisco in 1979 - by courtesy of the Time Machine. Once there, they respectively try to protect and destroy a cutesy women's libber (Steenburgen), discovering en route that violence is more at home in our times than gentleness. It's a bookish joke which comes unstuck: after nearly two hours the tension has evaporated, and all that's left is a curdle of jokes and brutality.