Nothing keeps a good film festival down, even a change of venue.The 59th Cinecon Classic Film Festival put on another entertaining festival at this year’s new location in El Segundo’s Old Town Music Hall, celebrating the power of entertainment. Presenting a wide diversity of programming, the Festival offered a little something for everyone, from silents to sound films to shorts, soundies, and even kinescopes, demonstrating the evolution of entertainment over the last 100 years.

El Segundo, possessing oodles of quaint small town, low-key charm, played host to this year’s version of the Festival in its vintage home town theatre. The Old Town Music Hall was a sweet choice, a charming, intimate venue with a wonderful dedicated staff ready to serve any need. It features a mighty Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ, which kicked things off with a small concert before the start of screenings Thursday.

Saturday kicked off with a little seen Rin Tin Tin feature, “The Night Cry.” Guard dog Rinty affectionately plays with his family while zealously guarding their sheep. Nearby ranchers hear curdling night cries and then discover dead sheep the next day and accuse sweet Rinty of the crime. Will Rinty solve the mystery and thus save himself? The film features plenty of action for Rin Tin Tin, including attacking a vulture and rescuing little Mary Louise Miller from its blood thirsty clutches. Rinty steals the show, as the humans mostly help move plot along, but sweet June Marlowe makes an appearance as the mother. Frederick Hodges provided a rousing, rollicking score.

Author and screenwriter Julian David Stone provided an informative, entertaining program on the little known Junior Laemmle, son of Universal Pictures’ founder Carl Laemmle. As a child, Carl Laemmle Jr. experienced the dread of losing his mother to the Spanish flu. Stone described how this dark time perhaps influenced the young man when he became studio head at Universal in 1928, producing such respected films as “Lonesome,” “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and “King of Jazz” in his first three years, before creating the horror Universal monster franchise with the classic films “Dracula,” Frankenstein,” “The Mummy,” “the Invisible Man,” and “The Bride of Frankenstein.” After such an illustrious start, his career tragically came to an end when the studio was lost in bankruptcy, and he never produced again. He did set Universal on a steady course of creating monster film classics for generations to come.

After lunch, the 1923 Our Gang short “Derby Day” played, featuring background scenes of early Culver City as well as what is now Cheviot Hills. After the kids view the excitement and pageantry of a real horse race, they decide to create a special derby of their own, featuring every type of farm animal. Featuring the first set of “Our Gang” kids, Allen “Farina” Hoskins stole the show with his determined, never say die performance, with nice portrayals by Ernest “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison, Mickey Daniels, and the slimy William Gillespie. Scott Lasky provided an energetic, uptempo accompaniment on the mighty Wurlitzer for the short.

The Festival saluted CBS Television City and its 70th anniversary during its Kinecon at Cinecon section, with many of the screened shorts showing the newly opened facility on Fairfax Avenue. Edward R. Murrow and crew toured the facility and met some of the CBS TV stars a month after the new studio building opened. Another short explaining coaxial cable contained shots of the Chicago skyline, New York City iconic buildings, the famed intersection of Hollywood and Vine, along with the CBS and NBC studios on Sunset Boulevard. One short toured the new videotape room at New York City headquarters, before the finale, the opening night program celebrating the state-of-the-art Fairfax Avenue facility. Stars such as Alvin Childress, Spencer Williams, Tim Moore, Joan Caulfield, Art Linkletter, Gavin Gordon, Marvin Kaplan, Eve Arden, Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and Jack Benny performed in skits, songs, and spoken word as they reoognized CBS and its technical and performance expertise.

For a change of pace, the Festival turned serious, showing a moving but intense “The View From the Bridge,” adapted by Arthur Miller from his stage play. Directed by the young Sidney Lumet, the film featured strong performances from cast members Maureen Stapleton, Raymond Pellegrin, Morris Carnovsky, Raf Vallone, and newcomer Carol Lawrence, as an Italian American family is torn apart by a stepuncle’s growing passion for his attractive young ward. Following the film, a vibrant Lawrence regaled the crowd with stories of her career and the making of the film, just three days before her 92nd birthday.

Sunday morning kicked off with the melodramatic 1922 Cecil B. DeMille feature, “Saturday Night,” a continuation of the “Cinderella” story after the meet cute between rich and poor. Sweet Irish girl Edith Roberts charms rich young scion Conrad Nagel, while his supposed fiancee, snooty Leatrice Joy, falls for her chauffeur Jack Mower after he rescues her from near disaster. Can the mismatched couples make it work, or will they revert to their own class? Jeanie MacPherson’s script has a few nice zingers, and performances are good by the four leads but Julia Faye as Nagel’s snooty sister almost steals the show. Such character actors as John Davidson, Malcolm McGregor, Theodore Roberts, and Peaches Jackson make appearances. Hodges provided a lush, early 1920s underscore to the proceedings.

Board member Michael Schlesinger interviewed veteran actress Peggy Webber before the screening of the 1951 Paramount film “Submarine Command,” in which she appeared. One of the all time greats in vintage radio, appearing alongside such performers as Orson Welles, Webber described how she landed her first job in radio in Hollywood as a teenager, working on some of the most respected shows, and some of her later film/TV performances.

Following Webber’s interview, the Festival screened the 1951 Paramount film “Submarine Command,” in which a guilty William Holden as Lt. Commander Ken White reminisces on service in World War II aboard the USS Tiger Shark submarine before taking over command off of North Korea in the early 1950s. Can he guide his ship and crew safely as well as reach a safe harbor in his marriage with the attractive, take no prisoners Nancy Olson?

Sharp as a tack Olson described working with Holden and influencing her then husband Alan Lerner in the creation of the famed “My Fair Lady” musical among other things after the film, further discussing her career at the long break and lunch that afternoon.

Fim historian Jeremy Arnold introduced the entertaining Republic Pictures 1943 “B” film “The Mantrap” at the start of the Sunday evening program. Written by Curt Siodmak, the movie featured the renowned English character actor Henry Stephenson in his only star role, playing famous retired detective Sir Humphrey Quilp, who with his friend Dr. Anatole Duprex (Lloyd Corrigan), come upon a terrible automobile accident in their electric car and must go on to solve the case. Set up as if to introduce a series of films with the character, the movie ended up as a one-off star performance for the charming Stephenson.

Monday morning kicked off with three newly restored and gleeful Laurel and Hardy shorts from Flicker Alley and Lobster Films, looking better than they have in decades. Two featured Stan Laurel in drag tricking villains to hilariously save the day in “Why Girls Love Sailors” and “Sugar Daddies,” which also features funny shenanigans from Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, and Noah Young at the Venice Pier. The all time classic “Putting Pants on Philip” followed, as a randy, kilt-wearing Laurel provides all kinds of funny headaches for his uncle Hardy in downtown Culver City. Adam Swanson provided a lovely, uptempo, ragtime accompaniment to the shorts.

Music historian Mark Cantor then described the history of the early music video process called “soundies,” musical shorts which played in a special jukebox with a screen in bars and other entertainment centers, in an entertaining, illuminating talk before screening some of these historic films. Such eclectic performers as Duke Ellington, Spade Cooley, and Thelma White appeared in a diverse set of films that highlighted western swing, jazz, polka music and dancing, an all girl jazz band, Cuban dancers, bellydancing, Gale Storm and Johnny Downs singing/dancing to a song, and ‘Five Guys Named Moe.”

After lunch, the Robert Culp family attended the screening of Culp’s personal print of the 1956 CBS dramedy TV show “Operation Three R’s,” a U. S. Steel Hour episode. During WWII, unhappy but intelligent young Corporal Neville (Culp) is assigned to teach such illiterates as Warren Oates, Paul Mazursky, and John Napier, quickly finding himself brought down to size. It featured nice performances from the young actors.

Dashing John Gilbert and an ethereal Jeanne Eagels demonstrated a sharp chemistry and timing in the 1927 MGM feature “Man, Woman, and Sin.” Young Gilbert takes a series of odd jobs from childhood through early adulthood to help support his strong but struggling mother Gladys Brockwell. After landing a job at a big city newspaper, Gilbert finds himself working for the society column, where he unexpectedly accompanies lovely society editor Eagels to a ball featuring President Calvin Coolidge when her married lover, editor Marc McDermott, demurs. Finding herself attracted to the head over heels young man, she returns his affections, leading to possible tragedy for all. The film features nice behind-the-scenes shots of newspaper production. Performances are all first rate, with Eagels demonstrating a wistful, understated quality which jumps off the screen, leaving one hungering for more. Tragic she died only a few years later to addiction.

While scheduling conflicts prevented me from attending the full festival, I enjoyed the eclectic, diverse programming I did see, and was charmed by the lovely intimate theatre. Cinecon 59 afforded guests the opportunity to watch classic entertainment in sweet surroundings with old and new friends alike.