William Elliott battles yet another greedy land baron in this rather lavish (for Republic Pictures) Western, which can probably best be described as a "nervous A" production. Obviously meant for more mature audiences than Republic's usual fare of B-Westerns and serials, Old Los Angeles contains an absolutely chilling performance by former star John Carroll who, incongruously, is featured at one point warbling a couple of bars of "Ever Faithful" just before embarking on another killing spree. For a non-singing Western, there is actually quite a bit of vocalizing going on: Leading lady Catherine McLeod (who, as always, deserves better than what she gets) sings "On the Boulevard" pretty much in the style of Anna Held, and Estelita Rodriguez performs the inevitable "Mexican Hat Dance" in both English and Spanish. But despite all this gaiety, Old California remains a grim experience with an unusually high body count for this sort of thing.