ABC, 8:00 p.m. ET
Today is, of course, the 19th anniversary of the destructive tragedies of 9/11. Next year, on the 20th anniversary, expect a much more prominent display of remembrance than TV provided this morning and is providing tonight. (Television and journalists love round numbers.) But ABC, at least, is devoting prime time to a special offering perspective about what happened, in three different locations, that day in September in 2001.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Three movies featuring Ursula Andress are shown by TCM tonight. The first is somewhat iconic, the second forgettable save for its special effects – and the third is a personal favorite. Starting the triple feature at 8 p.m. ET is 1965’s She, in which the actress sports a headdress, and costume (pictured), rivaling anything Elizabeth Taylor wore two years earlier in Cleopatra. At 10 p.m. ET comes 1981’s Clash of the Titans, memorable for Ray Harryhausen’s imaginative stop-action special effects than for Andress’ divine turn as Aphrodite. (Her co-stars, for the record, include Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Maggie Smith of Downton Abbey as Thetis, Burgess Meredith as Ammon, and Harry Hamlin, later of L.A. Law, as Perseus. But my favorite doesn’t show up until after midnight, at 12:15 a.m. ET, when Casino Royale shows up. Not the 2006 Daniel Craig action film, but the 1967 spoof, in which James Bond is played by David Niven. And Peter Sellers. And Terence Cooper. And even Woody Allen. It’s a wild satire in which almost everyone gets to be 007 for a while, and in which Andress gets to cavort with Sellers’ spy-in-training to the sounds of “The Look of Love” (the entire Burt Bachrach soundtrack here is a delight). Other co-stars include Orson Welles, Daliah Lavi, Joanna Pettet, Deborah Kerr, John Huston, and so, so many others. Casino Royale is a mess of a movie… but what an enjoyable, raucous, sexy, funny mess it is.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
After the Bob Woodward interview revelations with President Trump, it’s easy to imagine Bill Maher pacing impatiently backstage to get out there and deliver this week’s monologue. A president whose true thoughts, and true nature, are captured on audiotape. A president whose time in the White House may end up cut short, in part due to the dogged reporting of Bob Woodward. A nation divided by so many issues, with its leader pushing a fearful law-and-order platform. It’s such old news – and yet, somehow, it’s new news as well.
TCM, 2:45 a.m. ET
After three Ursula Andress films, TCM presents three cult classics. Well, two cult classics and a relatively rare cult “sequel.” First up: at 2:45 a.m. ET, 1957’s Plan 9 from Outer Space, the low-budget sci-fi messterpiece featuring Maila Nurmi, a.k.a. Vampira (pictured), and Tor Johnson. It was directed by Edward D. Wood Jr., immortalized by Johnny Depp in the wonderful movie Ed Wood. At 4:15 a.m. ET comes 1936’s infamous anti-drug film Reefer Madness, followed at 5:30 a.m. ET by the much less infamous, or famous, 1938 anti-coupling follow-up, Sex Madness.