TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Mary Astor is today’s “Summer Under the Stars” saluted thespian, and TCM has saved for prime time a movie classic that could just as well, and as proudly, be presented on days devoted to Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre. John Huston’s 1941 film noir classic presents Bogart as world-weary gumshoe Sam Spade. Bogart is perfect, Astor is a fine femme fatale, and Greenstreet and Lorre are deliciously entertaining villains – though the title character’s performance, it must be said, is a little stiff.
AMC, 9:00 p.m. ET
Now that we’re a few hours into Infamy, the new installment of AMC’s The Terror, I’ve finally pinpointed why I’m ultimately dissatisfied with this story of a vengeful Japanese spirit that haunts a U.S. internment camp of Japanese-Americans at the start of WWII. The dramatic story of the outrageously unfair internment of American citizens of Japanese descent is told so well that the supernatural aspects of Infamy – the female ghost, the occasional deaths and paranormal attacks – almost seem to intrude, so much that I wish this compelling drama had merely played it straight. I understand this is the whole design of this installment of The Terror – but the historically focused portions are acted and staged and photographed so well, the supernatural subplot feels like an unwanted intrusion. It’s like adding a vampire to Casablanca.
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
Our Boys, on the other hand, is getting even stronger as it goes along, because it’s giving equal time to both sides, and both perspectives, in retelling the tale of a series of kidnapping and murders of young men in and around the West Bank. First, young Israeli hitchhikers were abducted, then killed, while wending their way home – and then, apparently in retaliation, another violent group began targeting and abducting young Palestinians. Our Boys is told not only from the point of view of the detective team investigating the crimes, but from parents and friends of the victims and so on. The miniseries is subtitled, the setting is unusual and evocative for American television, and the narrative keeps surprising – as with last week’s cliffhanger, which lent a new element to the story of the latest abducted Palestinian young man.