TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Shirley MacLaine is the artist honored today by TCM’s “Summer Under the Stars,” and the roster of movies presented today and tonight includes several ones worth recording, revisiting or just plain enjoying and encountering. Today at 9:30 a.m. ET, TCM presents 1967’s Woman Times Seven, in which MacLaine plays seven different roles in a comedy anthology film. When it was shown originally on TV in the U.S., one of the seven segments was cut as being too risqué, so it actually was Woman Times Six. On TCM, the math and the movie both add up. Plenty of other fine films show up, including 1966’s Gambit at 6 p.m. ET, but the evening hours bring the real gold. Terms of Endearment (pictured), from 1983, starts things off at 8 p.m. ET, followed at 10:30 by 1989’s Steel Magnolias (sadly, another of her late-career triumphs, Being There, will not be here), and at 12:45 a.m. ET by 1969’s Sweet Charity.
BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET
The title of this nature documentary may sound like a children’s book, but I guarantee you, anything David Attenborough does is terrific television for the entire family. And whenever he’s not just narrating, but also on camera, it’s a can’t-miss treat. And this time, it’s about Jumbo the elephant, said to have inspired Walt Disney’s Dumbo.
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
Showtime has carved out a strong niche for itself, presenting all manner of deep-dive documentaries on music and musicians. (Its recent two-part study of David Bowie was particularly impressive.) Tonight, it presents a new documentary about the birth and growth of Motown – a Supreme subject indeed.
For a full review, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower.