User Reviews

VIRGINIA CITY (1940) is not only a classic Warner western but is a classic Errol Flynn western as well! Flynn had great success with his playing in westerns which baffled and intrigued the actor no end and prompted him, on occasion, to refer to himself as "the rich man's Roy Rogers".

From a fine screenplay by Robert Buckner VIRGINIA CITY was solidly directed by Michael Curtiz and beautiful photographed by Sol Polito. The picture boasted a top notch cast! Besides Flynn it had stone-faced Randolph Scott (on loan from Fox) as Flynn's confederate adversary and, sporting a dubious Mexican accent, a pre-stardom Humphrey Bogart turns up as an unlikely Mexican bandit leader. The female lead is, unfortunately, taken by the awful Miriam Hopkins (where, oh where was Olivia?), who plays a saloon singer come southern spy.

The story has Flynn - fresh from the quarter deck of The Albatross in "The Sea Hawk" - playing a Union Intelligence officer in the closing days of the Civil War trying to prevent a shipment of gold bullion reaching the south so that the struggle of the confederacy could be prolonged. Not only do the opposing sides battle it out with each other over the gold but they must also contend with Murrell (Bogart) and his bandits who are trying to get their hands on the rich booty for themselves. And it all adds up to a very exciting movie especially when finally union and confederate join forces to thwart the onslaught of the Mexican outlaws.

The excitement is heightened by the terrific score written for the picture by the legendary Max Steiner. Alongside "They Died With Their Boots On" (1942) and "The Searchers" (1956) "Virginia City" is arguably Steiner's best score for a western! The rich and evocative main theme first heard over the titles is a powerful statement for full orchestra. This theme used later in the film, as the gold laden wagons inch their way across the plains heading south, is Steiner at his most emphatic. Then there's a rollicking theme for the Stagecoach and a menacing motif - scored for horns - for the bandits. One of the composer's most arresting love themes is used in the film's more tender moments and the score and the movie comes to a close with a spine tingling version of 'Battle Hymn Of The Republic'.

So VIRGINIA CITY is quite an enjoyable movie all round and is available in a Flynn western box set which also contains "San Antonio", "Montana" and the wonderful "Rocky Mountain". But it is curious that on its original release in 1940 "Virginia City" was shown in Sepiatone. How come Warner Home Video didn't follow suit with the DVD? Would've been nice to see what it was like in that colour!

"Virginia City" was Bogart's first released film of the forties and his final appearance in a Western…

Colorfully directed by Michael Curtiz, it was an expensively mounted but rather routinely scripted tale of a Union Army officer (Errol Flynn) who blocks the plan of his Rebel antagonist (Randolph Scott) to ship five million dollars in gold to aid the Confederacy…

Bogart, again sporting his unappealing mustache, was a half-breed outlaw hired by Scott to divert Flynn but who finds the temptation of having the money for himself irresistible…

Not only was Bogart forced to play a poorly delineated role in "Virginia City," but he was required to work with Flynn and Scott, two actors for whom he had a tremendous personal dislike

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.

This is a very good and watchable Warner Brothers Western that COULD have been a lot better if it had been a true sequel to the Flynn film, DODGE CITY. You see, just a year earlier Flynn and his two side-kicks, Alan Hale and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, had starred in the marvelous film DODGE CITY. At the very end, the trio (plus Olivia DeHavilland who is strangely absent from this next film) agree at the film's conclusion to leave Dodge City and move to Virginia City to bring the town law and order. Well, here there are again but the plot and characters have been changed so much it really isn't a sequel--even though it was announced as one in the previous film. It really looks like the writers never even saw the other film or read the script, as this time Errol and his buddies are not ex-Confederate soldiers, but Union spies! However, the mood and tempo of the two films are awfully similar. In fact, they are so similar that it is very, very easy to mix them up in your mind. As just one example, both feature a cute little boy in a "dead meat" role. In other words, they are nice kids who ultimately MUST be killed because that is part of the Hollywood formula. Apart from a small age difference, the two boys look almost exactly the same. The films also feature lawless towns and the same fearless trio who arrive to clean it up and do good. And, most of the rest of the actors are identical and play very, very similar parts!

So, here is an easy way to distinguish them--DODGE CITY is filmed in gorgeous Technicolor and VIRGINIA CITY features Humphrey Bogart as a swarthy Mexican bandit!!! Oh, and by the way, Bogart as a Mexican actually is a lot worse than it sounds!! When it comes to stupid casting decisions, this SHOULD rank up there with John Wayne as Genghis Khan or Katherine Hepburn as a Chinese woman or Liberace as a handsome leading man torn between his music and his woman, though oddly, the dumbness of this casting has mostly been forgotten over the years. Despite the movie being excellent overall, the few scenes where Bogart speaks are unintentionally hilarious.

Now, in addition to Bogart, there is another weakness in the film and that was the casting of Miriam Hopkins as Flynn's love interest. After having seen the immensely beautiful Olivia DeHavilland in the previous film, it really was odd that they would have chosen a woman who just looked old and not particularly attractive. I know this sounds cruel, but I just couldn't see Flynn falling for her. Plus, in DODGE CITY, they fortunately never got DeHavilland to sing but passed that chore on to Ann Sheridan--a woman with a very competent voice. But Miss Hopkins sang her own songs as a bar room chanteuse and sounded pretty awful. So I assumed that the guys in the bar have been pretty drunk to enjoy having her as their host.

Now despite all these many complaints, I still gave the movie a score of 7. This is possible due to the always wonderful acting of Flynn in his prime as well as the rest of the cast. Bogart and Hopkins aside, the cast was terrific (McHugh, Hale, Williams and others) and adding Randolph Scott to the mix was a very good thing. Good old fashioned Warner Brothers fun--not to be missed by fans of the genre.

By December 1864 the Confederate Army was on it's last legs, literally and figuratively; "Virginia City" explores a final attempt to finance the Southern cause via a bold plan by the Confederacy to smuggle five million dollars in gold from Virginia City, Nevada back to Richmond, Virginia. Captain Vance Irby (Randolph Scott) volunteers for the assignment, and pits his military skill and acumen against a resourceful Union Captain, Kerry Bradford (Errol Flynn). The story opens with Irby foiling an escape attempt by Bradford and his men from Richmond's Libby Prison, alternatively known by it's guests as the Devil's Warehouse. Bradford lives for the day he can repay Irby for the indignity of foiling his plan, not to mention the months of tunneling in vain, as Irby was aware of the dig for just about as long.

Along the way, an uncharacteristically miscast Humphrey Bogart makes his appearance as a Mexican bandit, with the un-Mexican name of John Murrell. He looks as uncomfortable here as he did opposing Jimmy Cagney's character in "The Oklahoma Kid", Westerns were definitely not his forte. Though he did get a good line in on the stagecoach to Virginia City; with a derringer trained on Bradford he states "I do not particularly want to shoot you mister, but I do not mind." I tried to imagine him saying "We don't need no steenking badges".

Miriam Hopkins portrays Julia Hayne, the love interest for both lead antagonists, with Southern sympathies but an eye for a spy, that is, Captain Bradford. She spends a good deal of time agonizing over loyalties, while balancing her work life as a saloon singer in Virginia City. I must be pretty tone deaf, as I found her singing to be entertaining enough, unlike other posters for this film. On the other hand, it was supposed to be a cover, and a poll of drunken rowdy prospectors would score more for looks than voice anyway.

I got a kick out of the ongoing banter between Bradford's pair of buddies, Marblehead (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams) and Moose (Alan Hale). Their constant understated bickering lends just the right touch of comic relief to the film. There's a funny scene in the saloon as the boys begin drinking when they look to a picture of a semi clad woman above the bar; one exclaims "I wonder what she'd do if we had another drink".

I didn't realize it until the closing credits, but young Cobby Gill was portrayed by Dickie Jones, who grew up to be the Range Rider's sidekick in the early 1950's series of the same name. For my money, Jones was the best stunt rider of them all, some of his work in that series is incredible.

I was intrigued by some of the shooting styles offered in the film. In a couple of shootouts, Marblehead is shown "throwing" his gun in the direction of fire; I can't see how that would be effective for accuracy. It was also the way Wild Bill Elliott used his six guns, at least in his Red Ryder movies. During the attack by Murrell's gang on the gold train, Bradford impresses Irby with his "wing fan" shooting. It was during this scene that a highly unusual, if not unbelievable development took place. After taking a life threatening bullet, Irby turns over his command to Bradford! I'd like to see the rule book on that one.

For all his military discipline, Bradford ultimately weighs in with his own conscience. Deliberately destroying the gold wagon to prevent it's capture by Murrell, Bradford is arrested and found guilty of high treason, sentenced to death by hanging on April 9, 1865 - on the day General Lee is to surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House. In a gallant and patriotic ending, excellent camera work captures President Lincoln's silhouette as he pardons Bradford, the anxious Miss Hayne having pleaded her case for the man she loves. It's as flag waving a moment as it gets, as Lincoln declares the South as not having lost, but having been found.

There is a lot going on in this one, behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera. This whole thing is based upon a legendary hoard of Confederate Gold that never showed up after the war. While the characters are fictional, the stolen gold was real. The writers from Warners who worked on this were responsible for Erroll Flynns Robin Hood and Bogarts Casablanca. Considering both are in the cast, it makes for an interesting film.

Miriam Hopkins is female lead, and one of the few women in the film. At age 38, she is 7 years Senior of Flynn, but only her voice sounds old. Randolph Scott actually plays the Confederate Leader trying to get the Gold to the failing Confederacy in late 1864, early 1865.

This film features a fine supporting cast and had 8 shooting locations in Arizona and California. Even though this film is in Black and White, Warners put a very good director, Curtis, with a big name cast and solid screen writers. In a lot of ways it is a near classic. Bogart has a large role in being a crook who comes between Flynn and Scott.

This 1940 feature is pretty impressive. The music track is very good and would be used again in other western films. The ending and the music promote patriotic Americana. One of the few Westerns with almost no Indians, just Copperheads, Union, and Rebs.

When I was a child back in the 1950s, Westerns were the big thing. But, like the rest of America, as I grew older I gave up watching Westerns...except for once in a while when a Western came along with big stars, high production values, and a story that was a little different. This film has all those qualities.

Let's begin with the cast. Errol Flynn was in his prime years when he made this film, and it's obvious why he was such a tremendous star. Miriam Hopkins, who is either really good or really lousy in each of her films, is very good here as a Southern belle working to save the Confederacy (type casting? She was a native of Savannah, Georgia). Randolph Scott is excellent as the Confederate who is attempting to ship gold back to Richmond to save the Confederacy. Humphrey Bogart, unfortunately, is terribly miscast as a stagecoach robber who gets mixed up in the Confederates versus Yankees, but this was just one year before he hit it big with films such as "The Maltese Falcon". Frank McHugh is here, although one wonders why...but at least he is not as annoying as he sometimes was. Alan Hale is great as Flynn's sidekick...perhaps only second (next to Gabby Hayes) as sidekicks go. Even the minor players do well here.

Then there's the history of what is really a mix of a Civil War story and a Western. The early part of the film at the prison in Richmond is fairly accurate, although Richmond doesn't have moss hanging from the trees, and the river that flows through the city doesn't look like that at all. But much of the info about he prison is pretty close to real history.

Production values here are very high. The scenes in red rock country -- what a shame they weren't filmed in color! And then there's the plot, which is on the unique side! Randolph Scott and his cohorts trying to bring western gold to the Confederacy in Richmond, versus Errol Flynn and his cohorts trying to stop them. And in the middle, a woman (naturally)...Miriam Hopkins. Hopkins proves she couldn't sing, but she had pretty nice legs...way up there! And, interestingly, the rebels are portrayed fairly -- as people who are simply on the other side of the tragedy of the Civil War.

This is a rip-snortin' Western well worth watching and having on your DVD shelf...particularly because of Errol Flynn in his prime.

Directed by Michael Curtiz and written by Robert Buckner, this Warner Bros. drama features the unusual casting of Humphrey Bogart as a bandito named John Murrell, who unintentionally heals the conflict between Errol Flynn's Union Captain Kerry Bradford and Randolph Scott's Confederate Captain Vance Irby, after their Civil War moves west to Nevada's wild (and movie titled) outpost.

Miriam Hopkins plays the conflicted Julia Hayne. As a saloon singer in the Northern leaning town, Julia conceals the fact that she's the daughter of a deceased Confederate colonel. Indeed, she's just proposed a plan to have Irby transport $5 million in gold from Confederate sympathizers, aka "Copperheads", in Nevada City to Jefferson Davis (Charles Middleton) and the nearly bankrupt Confederacy in the east.

But after 21 days of riding back west in a stagecoach with Bradford, a Union spy who suspects that such a plan is in the works, and innocently falling in love with him, she has second thoughts. Still, she helps Irby capture Bradford, who's forced to ride on the very wagon train of gold he and his (comic relief) sidekicks (Alan Hale, of course, and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams) were trying to stop.

Murrell and his murdering gang of bandits intercept the convoy forcing North and South to join forces before the (cliché) cavalry shows up to save the day.

Frank McHugh appears as another passenger on the westbound coach; John Litel, Douglas Dumbrille, Moroni Olsen, Dickie Jones, Russell Simpson, and Victor Kilian (as the unmistakable voice of Abraham Lincoln, no less) also appear among the credited cast while Ward Bond and Charles Halton are among the dozens of uncredited actors in the cast.

One of the few films to dramatize the often overlooked importance of newly mined Western gold and silver in the financing of primarily the Union war machine during the Civil War. It also dramatizes the historic tunneling escape of 100 Union officers from the notorious Richmond Libby Prison. And who else to star in such a drama than Errol Flynn, with true southerner Randy Scott as his chief Confederate nemesis. Throw in some Mexican bandidos, implausibly led by Humphrey Bogart, as the third element in the fight for the gold bullion, Miriam Hopkins as a Southern spy, dance hall girl,and romantic bait for Flynn and Scott, and great Max Steiner background music, and you have the basics for a complicated and exciting Civil War Western screen play.... A decade later, in "Hangman's Knot", Scott would again play the leader of a small Confederate cavalry detachment intent on stealing gold out of Nevada to help prolong a nearly dead Confederacy. Again, there was a 3 -way battle for the gold and, again, the fate of the gold is diplomatically left unsettled.

While the screen play provides for an interesting film, this is not to say that is the most plausible screen play. Thus, Flynn and Scott are initial antagonists in the Libby Prison. Later, they are very coincidentally assigned as opponents in relation to a planned secret gold shipment from Virginia City to Texas. Given the dramatized difficulties of the overland transport of a large amount of gold over primitive roads, through mud, sand and occasional rivers, the Confederacy would likely have been long dead, even in the unlikely case that this gold eventually reached Richmond. Near the end of the film, symbolism clearly overtakes plausibility as the driving force of the plot. Some reviewers find this incongruous turn of events a flaw, but I see it as a device to get across the take home message behind the film. Thus, Scott's death clearly symbolizes the impending death of the Confederacy. The implied union of Union intelligence agent Flynn and Mariam's southern spy character after Scott's death, as well as the prior combined Confederate-Union defense of the gold against Bogart's bandidos, clearly symbolizes the impending reunion of the US against common enemies(the Nazis being the relevant contemporary foe for audiences when this film was released). Flynn's eloquent speech at his treason court martial clearly symbolizes Lincoln's rhetoric of binding the nation's wounds. Also, Flynn's Scott-infused changed attitude toward the disposition of the gold, and Mariam's supposed quick journey to Washington(by magic carpet?) to plead with Lincoln to prevent Flynn's imminent execution are highly implausible heroic acts.

Flynn's knuckle-headed sidekicks, played by Alan Hale and "Big Boy" Williams, were supposed to provide occasional comic relief, as in the Flynn-starring "Santa Fe Trail" and "Dodge City". However, Bogart's forced acting, with a phony-sounding Mexican accent, perhaps elicits as much humor in today's audiences. His character was clearly modeled on the pre-Civil War Californian Mexican bandit leader Juan Murietta. However, strangely, Bogie has the unMexican name of John Murrell, with an obvious resemblance to the name of the former Mexican outlaw! Yes, there was an infamous outlaw leader named John Murrell, long dead before the Civil War, who operated in the Mississippi river area, robbing people traveling on the river and the Nachez Trace, among various other criminal activities. His likeness was featured in the later Disney film "Davy Crocket and the River Pirates".

Now, getting to the point of my title: By coincidence, there were actually 2 Virginia Cities in the western US that were important centers of gold or silver mining during the Civil War. The newly discovered Comstock lode, next to emerging Virginia City, NV, produced mostly silver, but also significant gold, as did a few other NV sites. During the war, abundant placer gold was discovered near the emerging boom town of Virginia City, Montana Territory. It would play a central role (renamed Mineral City) in the classic Clark Gable western "The Tall Men". Now, it happens that the majority of people in this area were southern secessionists(but draft dodgers). Hence, the Lincoln administration was very concerned that much of this gold might end up in the Confederacy. Thus, a vigilante group was organized to help prevent this. Also, a program of subsidized immigration of northerners into this area was initiated. Hence, this Virginia City would have been perhaps a more logical place to site a screen play such as in this film, emphasizing gold rather than silver.

As others have noted, Miriam seems miscast in this role. She took the place of Flynn's most popular leading lady, Olivia de Havilland. True, like Scott, she was southern-bred, However, she comes across as much more detached and vulnerable than the smiling tomboyish Olivia. She was also approaching 40, to Olivia's 24 and Flynn's 31. Yes, she was a bit old for Flynn's new squeeze...Flynn, although usually portrayed as a fit swashbuckler, had numerous chronic health problems and risks that kept him out of active service in WWII. Unfortunately, he had a deep personality conflict with the well-regarded director, Michael Curtiz, who directed the majority of Flynn's best remembered films.