NATURE: “THE ELEPHANT AND THE TERMITE” WILDTALES FROM THE FARM STAR OF THE MONTH: SYDNEY GREENSTREET

8 p.m.

Witness the creation of one of Africa’s greatest wildlife meeting places and the site of extraordinary drama: the waterhole. From mighty elephants to tiny termites, an entire community of creatures call the waterhole their home.

Smithsonian Channel, 8 p.m. New Series! Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville hosts this revealing fourpart series about the secret lives of animals on a 500-acre English farm. We begin in spring with flirty cows and a hen torn between ruling the roost and feeding her chicks.

TCM, beginning at 8 p.m.

Catch a Classic! Considering that he did not begin his film career until age 61 after many years of stage acting, and with that career consisting of only 24 movies made throughout the 1940s, it’s all the more impressive that legendary actor Sydney Greenstreet was able to become such an enduring

big-screen icon. It really speaks to his talent; Greenstreet, who frequently played supporting roles as characters with personalities as outsized as the actor’s large physical presence, could steal scenes from even the likes of frequent co-stars Humphrey Bogart (they made five movies together) and Peter Lorre (nine movies together). While Greenstreet appeared in some comedies, most of his movies were films noir or dramas where he portrayed morally ambiguous, if not outright corrupt, figures, yet he often managed to bring good humor to even his shadiest characters. Each Wednesday this month, Turner Classic Movies recognizes Greenstreet as its Star of the Month with an evening of his films; in total, the celebration will encompass nearly all of the actor’s cinematic body of work in which he portrayed a fictional character, not himself. It begins tonight with Greenstreet’s first movie, the film noir classic The Maltese Falcon (1941), which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and was the first of his teamings with Bogart and Lorre. Also tonight: the 1942 spy film Across

the Pacific, which re-teamed Greenstreet with Bogart, as well as Maltese Falcon costar Mary Astor and director John Huston (who co-directed this film with Vincent Sherman); Conflict (1945), another film noir pairing Greenstreet and Bogart, only this time with Bogie as the bad guy in the equation; The Hucksters (1947), also starring Clark Gable and Deborah Kerr in her American film debut; and Passage to Marseille (1944), a war film again teaming Greenstreet with Bogart and Lorre, as well as their Casablanca costar Claude Rains.