Could any two less likely major stars be chosen to carry a Hollywood oater? There's Errol Flynn, an Australian with an accent of sorts who made his name waving a sword at sea and shooting arrows in forests. There's Miriam Hopkins, one of the most sophisticated and slyest actresses Hollywood has ever seen, but whose career as a major star in major movies had declined since the late Thirties. Yet together with Randolph Scott and director Michael Curtiz, they turn Virginia City into a rouser, part full-blown action western and part patriotic soap opera. With the movie slightly more than two hours long, Curtiz crams in more set-ups than probably he should have, but even all those separate piece-parts look good.
Kerry Bradford (Flynn) is a Union officer imprisoned in Libby Prison just outside of Richmond. Vance Irby (Randolph Scott) is a Confederate officer assigned to run the prison while he recuperates from war wounds. The war is not going well for the Confederates. Bradford and two pals break out just as Confederate spy Julia Hayne (Miriam Hopkins), based in Virginia City, Nevada, arrives for a meeting with old friend Irby. Confederate mine owners in Virginia City have accumulated enough gold for a major shipment to Richmond...$5 million in bullion that could change the war. With Jefferson Davis' approval, Irby is ordered to go to Virginia City and organize a wagon train to try to get the gold down to Texas and the Gulf coast, then by ship back to Richmond. But Union spies know the gold is being readied. Bradford, back in uniform, convinces his superiors to send him to Virginia City, locate the gold and stop the shipment. And who should be on the stagecoach taking Kerry and his two pals to Virginia City? Yes, Julia Hayne. And not just her. There's a man with a hairline mustache, a twitchy way, a false smile and a strangely uncertain Mexican accent. It's Humphrey Bogart, disguised as the renegade John Murrell, the leader of Murrell's Marauders, a group of hard-riding robbers and killers.
The stage is set for action...hair-breadth escapes, run-away stage coaches, tense stand-offs, rousing songs at the Sazerac Saloon (where Julia is the headliner as a singer and dancer), a desperate wagon train running out of water and attacked in the desert by Humphrey Bogart, bullet extractions, beautiful desert scenery, a court martial and a cavalry charge to the rescue, not in that order. We even get a dignified Jefferson Davis, a jocular General George Meade and a merciful and wise Abraham Lincoln, who recites parts of his second inaugural address to a teary-eyed Julia.
Errol Flynn does a bang-up job, but Miriam Hopkins and Humphrey Bogart are game but miscast. Hopkins is as unlikely an earnest Southern spy as she is a saloon singer, yet she's still highly watchable as both. She was born and raised in Georgia, but the softness of a high-bred Southern belle with something approximating a New England tease makes for an accent that's uniquely hers. Her lower choppers are charmingly irregular and she can handle a high kick with ease. Hopkins was so mischievous and sly an actress that it must have been hard to find the right movies for her. That she took Hollywood less than seriously probably didn't help. For her best work, you'll need to watch Trouble in Paradise, The Smiling Lieutenant and Design for Living. At 47 she was memorable as Aunt Livinia in The Heiress.
As for Bogart, after this movie he probably counted his blessings that in the following year he broke through with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon. If Bogart hadn't scored these two, it's just likely he would have been stuck for the rest of his life competing for character parts with J. Carroll Naish.
Thank goodness we have Randolph Scott to provide the movie's steadfastness and old- fashioned honor. He may be playing a reb, he may be up against Errol Flynn as a hero and a suitor, but Scott knows how to hold his own in these kinds of pictures. On balance, Virginia City is easy to watch, thanks to Scott and Flynn. Miriam Hopkins makes for a unique kind of heroine and even Humphrey Bogart's secondary villain is interesting in a ludicrous sort of way.
Kerry Bradford (Flynn) is a Union officer imprisoned in Libby Prison just outside of Richmond. Vance Irby (Randolph Scott) is a Confederate officer assigned to run the prison while he recuperates from war wounds. The war is not going well for the Confederates. Bradford and two pals break out just as Confederate spy Julia Hayne (Miriam Hopkins), based in Virginia City, Nevada, arrives for a meeting with old friend Irby. Confederate mine owners in Virginia City have accumulated enough gold for a major shipment to Richmond...$5 million in bullion that could change the war. With Jefferson Davis' approval, Irby is ordered to go to Virginia City and organize a wagon train to try to get the gold down to Texas and the Gulf coast, then by ship back to Richmond. But Union spies know the gold is being readied. Bradford, back in uniform, convinces his superiors to send him to Virginia City, locate the gold and stop the shipment. And who should be on the stagecoach taking Kerry and his two pals to Virginia City? Yes, Julia Hayne. And not just her. There's a man with a hairline mustache, a twitchy way, a false smile and a strangely uncertain Mexican accent. It's Humphrey Bogart, disguised as the renegade John Murrell, the leader of Murrell's Marauders, a group of hard-riding robbers and killers.
The stage is set for action...hair-breadth escapes, run-away stage coaches, tense stand-offs, rousing songs at the Sazerac Saloon (where Julia is the headliner as a singer and dancer), a desperate wagon train running out of water and attacked in the desert by Humphrey Bogart, bullet extractions, beautiful desert scenery, a court martial and a cavalry charge to the rescue, not in that order. We even get a dignified Jefferson Davis, a jocular General George Meade and a merciful and wise Abraham Lincoln, who recites parts of his second inaugural address to a teary-eyed Julia.
Errol Flynn does a bang-up job, but Miriam Hopkins and Humphrey Bogart are game but miscast. Hopkins is as unlikely an earnest Southern spy as she is a saloon singer, yet she's still highly watchable as both. She was born and raised in Georgia, but the softness of a high-bred Southern belle with something approximating a New England tease makes for an accent that's uniquely hers. Her lower choppers are charmingly irregular and she can handle a high kick with ease. Hopkins was so mischievous and sly an actress that it must have been hard to find the right movies for her. That she took Hollywood less than seriously probably didn't help. For her best work, you'll need to watch Trouble in Paradise, The Smiling Lieutenant and Design for Living. At 47 she was memorable as Aunt Livinia in The Heiress.
As for Bogart, after this movie he probably counted his blessings that in the following year he broke through with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon. If Bogart hadn't scored these two, it's just likely he would have been stuck for the rest of his life competing for character parts with J. Carroll Naish.
Thank goodness we have Randolph Scott to provide the movie's steadfastness and old- fashioned honor. He may be playing a reb, he may be up against Errol Flynn as a hero and a suitor, but Scott knows how to hold his own in these kinds of pictures. On balance, Virginia City is easy to watch, thanks to Scott and Flynn. Miriam Hopkins makes for a unique kind of heroine and even Humphrey Bogart's secondary villain is interesting in a ludicrous sort of way.