Virginia City

Plot synopsis:
Union officer Kerry Bradford (Errol Flynn) stages a daring escape from Confederate Libby Prison run by the commandant, Vance Irby (Randolph Scott). Bradford reports to Union headquarters and is immediately sent to Virginia City, a Nevada mining town, to find out where $5,000,000 in gold that Southern sympathizers plan to ship to the tottering Confederacy is being kept. On the westbound stagecoach, he meets and falls in love with the elegant Julia Hayne (Miriam Hopkins), who unbeknownst to him is in fact a dance-hall entertainer — and a rebel spy, sent by Jefferson Davis (Charles Middleton) to assist in the transfer of the gold by wagon train. Also on the stagecoach is the legendary John Murrell (Humphrey Bogart), leader of a gang of "banditos", traveling as a gun salesman. Before he and his gang can rob the stage, Bradford gets the drop on Murrell, who is forced to send his men away.
When the stage reaches Virginia City, Julia gives Bradford the slip and heads off to warn Captain Irby, who is now managing the gold-smuggling operation, that Bradford is in town. Bradford follows Irby to the rebels' hideout behind a false wall in a blacksmith's shop, but the gold is moved before he arrives. The Union garrison is called out to patrol the roads to prevent any wagons from leaving town.
While Irby is meeting with the sympathetic town doctor, Murrell shows up looking for someone to set his broken arm. Irby offers Murrell $10,000 to have his banditos attack the garrison, which will force the Union soldiers guarding the roads to come to its defense. While the soldiers are busy, Irby's rebels will smuggle the gold out in the false bottoms of their wagons. First Irby needs to take care of Bradford. He uses Julia to arrange a meeting between the two men, and then takes Bradford prisoner, intending to return him to prison.
The rebels' caravan is stopped at a small Union outpost. At first, they are allowed to proceed, but after watching the bullion-laden wagons have difficulty moving through the soft dirt, the soldiers become suspicious and attempt to inspect the wagons. The Southerners start a firefight, killing the soldiers. In the confusion, Bradford escapes. Pursued closely by Irby and his men, he rides his horse down a steep incline and ends up somersaulting down the hill. The rebels, believing him dead, continue toward Texas. Bradford returns to the outpost and sends a telegraph to the garrison. Major Drewery (Douglass Dumbrille), the garrison commander, arrives with a contingent of cavalry. Drewery, who is scornful of Bradford as a soldier, does not take his advice and ends up following a false trail, causing the pursuit to fall ever further behind the rebels, who are themselves fighting thirst, privation, and the unforgiving terrain. Bradford is able to persuade Drewery to allow him to take a small detachment to follow his hunch.
Bradford and his men catch up with the caravan which is trapped in a canyon and being attacked by Murrell's banditos who are attempting to take the gold. Irby is wounded in the gunfight, but Bradford's superior military skills and the rebels' long guns eventually drive off the banditos. Before he dies, Irby delegates command of the caravan and its gold to Bradford. During the night, knowing that in the morning both Murrell's men and Drewery's command will arrive, Bradford takes the gold from the wagons and buries it in the canyon to prevent its capture.
Drewery and his men arrive in the morning in time to crush the outlaws' renewed attack, and Murell is killed. Bradford refuses to disclose the gold's location and is brought up on charges in a court-martial. He defends his action in that, "as a soldier", he knew the gold might have been used to win the war for the South and prevented that, but "as a man" he knows it belongs to the South and he would prefer that it be used to rebuild the South's shattered economy and wounded pride after the war. The court finds him guilty of high treason and sentences him to death on April 9, 1865.
The day before Bradford's scheduled execution, Julia meets with Abraham Lincoln (Victor Kilian, seen only in silhouette) and pleads for Bradford's life. Lincoln reveals that at that very moment, Generals Lee and Grant are meeting at Appomattox Courthouse to end the war. As the war is over, and in a symbol of the reconciliation between North and South, Lincoln pardons Bradford in the spirit of his second inaugural address, "With malice toward none; with charity for all..."

Tags: violence, historical fiction

Review:
Nevertheless, the simple fact that Errol Flynn is the lead role makes up for many of the shortcomings and makes this yet another solid production featuring Flynn and director Michael Curtiz.In a story somewhat reminiscent of Gone With the Wind and Flynn's previous film Dodge City, Union captain Bradford (Flynn) escapes with his two sidekicks (the same in Dodge City) and travels to Virginia City to try and stop a group of Southerners from bringing $5 million in gold back from the mines of Nevada in order to fund the war which they are badly losing.
Miriam Hopkins plays the role usually reserved for Olivia de Havilland, and although she isn't as personable or warm as her, Hopkins holds her own with both Scott and Flynn.As for Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican bandit, he is highly miscast, but still a solid part of this strong cast that all comes together in the end in a final shootout in the desert.
Randolph Scott plays a Southern officer who is sent to Virginia City, NV to obtain gold so that the South can finance the Civil War. They need to do this simply because this late in the war and with the South losing, the Confederacy no longer has financial credit with foreign powers.
It is incredible that all but one of the Warner westerns made with Errol Flynn (Dodge City) did not age and are fun to watch more than 60 years later.
Randolph Scott has one of his best performances as Irby, the officer from the South, who is trying to take the gold of Virginia City in a caravan.
Against the backdrop of the American Civil War, Errol Flynn, Union Captain, was up against Randolph Scott, Confederate Colonel, with Miriam Hopkins supplying the love interest between the two.
Bogart's miscasting really distracts from the film, even though it is no fault of his own.Besides the stars in the film, there's good support cast members from Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Alan Hale, Sr., John Litel, and Moroni Olsen, all veterans of the Western genre.
At the end of Michael Curtiz's enormously successful Dodge City in 1939, Olivia DeHavilland decides she's married a professional lawman after all so Guinn Williams ends the film with a resounding, 'Virginia City here we come' as Errol Flynn will now take the job offer of marshal.Too bad that they didn't make a sequel with those same characters.
A year later when Virginia City was made it was a fanciful Civil War out west tale about a Confederate scheme at the last minute to smuggle several millions in gold bullion into the South for supplies to keep the war going.
And what happens in the end strains credulity to say the least.Carried over from the cast of Dodge City are Errol Flynn, Guinn Williams, Alan Hale, and Ward Bond.
Talk about true life casting, Errol being led astray by his hormones.There's a third player in this game and that's Humphrey Bogart who plays the Mexican bandit leader Murrell with an accent like the Frito Bandito's.
But if I had three film icons like Errol Flynn, Randolph Scott, and Humphrey Bogart in my film, I'd sure have looked for a better property, pardner..
Think of it as a forerunner of the 1960's TV show "Wild, Wild West" without Secret Service agents James West and Artemus Gordon!Bogey is the Mexican bandit, a real bad guy who causes enemies Flynn and Scott to join forces.If you have never seen "Virginia City", rent it some time or wait until it appears again on Turner..
VIRGINIA CITY, the "non-sequel" to Errol Flynn's big 1939 hit, DODGE CITY, gives the impression that the Warner Brothers were suffering from a shortage of good Western scripts in 1940.
The film 'borrows' much of Max Steiner's DODGE CITY musical score, reunites Flynn with DODGE CITY costars (and friends) Alan Hale and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams (playing virtually the same characters, with different names), and attempts the visual 'sweep' of DODGE CITY, in black and white, with a smaller budget.
What is most memorable about the film, however, are two truly offbeat casting choices; Humphrey Bogart as a half-breed Mexican bandit, and tone-deaf Miriam Hopkins as a saloon singer.
Bogart did NOT want to do the film (he felt himself miscast in westerns), but faced suspension if he didn't 'show up' for work, and his unconvincing Mexican accent and forced performance give clear evidence to his unhappiness with the role.
As a 'sexy' chanteuse, her singing is so incredibly bad that it must be heard to be believed!The plot, of an undercover Union captain (Flynn) attempting to wrest a shipment of southern gold from a wagon train headed by the Confederate colonel (Scott) who had run the prison camp he'd previously escaped from, gets bogged down in subplots, and, in trying to appease viewers from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, makes everyone so noble that you wonder why there was a Civil War!
Tasmanian Flynn, however, appears more comfortable in the Western genre than he had in DODGE CITY, and, after the on and off-screen battling with Bette Davis in his previous film, THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX, it must have felt like a vacation (even with hated director Michael Curtiz helming the project!)VIRGINIA CITY is, ultimately, a 'B' movie with an 'A'-list cast and crew, and while the end result isn't terrible, it isn't a film that either Flynn or Bogart would list as among their best efforts..
While not up to Errol Flynn's other great western, "Dodge City," this movie is another in the long list of first-rate films that Flynn and director Michael Curtiz made together.
The film has two main drawbacks: the severe miscasting of Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican bandit named Morrell (?!) and Miriam Hopkins as the Flynn/Scott love interest.
As if to signal that the plot of VIRGINIA CITY would be borrowing many elements from previous Warner westerns, this one begins with stock footage from other studio westerns before settling down to tell a story that goes off in several different directions but remains in desperate need of a cohesive plot.The first plot involves the greed for gold that has a Mexican bandit (HUMPHREY BOGART) interfering with the plans of ERROL FLYNN and RANDOLPH SCOTT involving the shipment of gold from Virginia City to aid the losing Southern cause during the Civil War. The second, is a lame romantic trio wherein Flynn and Scott are vying for the affections of a dance hall girl who is really a Southern spy (MIRIAM HOPKINS).
The third plot concerns subsidiary characters, including a little boy (DICKIE JONES) who is aiding the rebels and meets an untimely death--just like the little boy in DODGE CITY, Flynn's bigger and better western.So many remarks here comment on Max Steiner's score, but most of it includes snippets of Southern folk tunes for the Confededracy and/or Northern tunes for the Union music and very little of the score is original background material.
The score, in other words, has tough competition from the lusty music he wrote for DODGE CITY, a far more complex and memorable score.But the film's main drawback, aside from a very busy plot that takes two hours to unravel, is the miscasting of Miss Hopkins as singer and dancer at a saloon wherein the stage looks suspiciously like the same one used for Ann Sheridan's saloon gal in DODGE CITY.
Very unique "western" film based on two men on opposite sides of the Civil War. The movie movies through several locations beginning with a Confederate prison camp where Kerry (Errol Flynn) and his usual film sidekicks (Alan Hale and Guinn Williams) are attempting to escape the prison where Lance (Scott) oversees.
Too ironic for description.Scott & Flynn are great in their roles as is Alan Hale, but Miriam Hopkins (as usual) falls flat as Southern belle / saloon girl spy and love interest to both Flynn & Scott's characters.
Errol Flynn (Bradford) and Randolph Scott (Irby) are on opposite sides of the American Civil War. Both end up in Virginia City to get their hands on a consignment of gold that could influence the outcome of the war.
Miriam Hopkins (Julia) provides the romantic interest for these two men to fight over, while Humphrey Bogart (Murrell) heads a gang of bandits who also go after the gold.
Errol Flynn reteams w/his steady director in crime Michael Curtiz to tell this Civil War story where a band of Union soldiers are on the hunt of some Rebs who have stolen some gold w/the explicit intention of shoring up the coffers for the Confederacy.
After escaping from a Confederate prison, Union officer Errol Flynn is sent to Virginia City, Nevada, on a mission to prevent a gold shipment from making its way to the Rebels.
But in charge of the gold shipment is Confederate officer Randolph Scott, the same man who was in charge of the prison Flynn escaped from.
Also muddying the waters is Mexican bandit Humphrey Bogart (!!!), who Scott enlists to help get the gold past Flynn without ever thinking what would happen when you wave a shipment of gold in front of an outlaw.Decent western with a Civil War backdrop directed by Michael Curtiz.
One of the more interesting things about the movie is its reluctance to paint either the North or South in a completely bad light, just some 75 years removed from the Civil War. The funniest part of the movie, and probably what gets it any attention today, is the miscasting of Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican, complete with a laughable accent that comes & goes and a Cesar Romero mustache.
Presumably, after the success of "Dodge City", Warners tried a follow-up with Errol Flynn and his usual list of buddies, like Alan Hale, Guinn (Big Boy) Williams, Frank Mc Hugh and the ever-present John Litel, but they made the huge mistake of trying to present Miriam Hopkins as a love interest for Flynn v.
Humphrey Bogart, on the eve of stardom is more a curio with his awful accent but he's still fun to see.It was also rare to pair Flynn with another leading man, this time: Randolph Scott!
Virginia City is another Flynn western that features lots of slam bang action and some amazing stunts for it's time 1940.
Randolph Scott and a young Humphrey Bogart co-star in an action-packed story that starts at a Civil War prison camp and ends thousands of miles away in a desert with an old-fashioned circle-the-wagons gun battle.
Flynn plays a union spy sent to stop a Confederate officer, Scott's character, who is trying to smuggle a gold shipment into the South.
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 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.
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".
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.
"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.
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.
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!!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Errol Flynn does a bang-up job, but Miriam Hopkins and Humphrey Bogart are game but miscast.
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....
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).
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.
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.
In the 1940 film "Virginia City", Errol Flynn stars as a Yankee spy during the Civil War who befriends Miriam Hopkins and her Southern friends while trying to uncover the location of a huge shipment of Confederate gold.
Randolph Scott is Flynn's nemesis in the film but he certainly isn't the "bad guy." That dubious honor falls to Humphrey Bogart.
Unlike the real Civil War, it all ends happily in "Virginia City" thanks to good old Abe Lincoln.
Errol Flynn (representing the Union) around this time was on top form, and Randolph Scott, a native Virginian, is ideally suited for the role of Southern gentleman soldier.Miriam Hopkins, while a bit older than the usual leading lady in films of this period, is still very beautiful and is perfect as a Southern aristocrat fallen on hard times because of a war which is obviously being lost.
Humphrey Bogart may at first seem a bit ridiculous as a Mexican bandit, but he could play the bad guy when he had to and you have to remember that this film was before Casablanca and his other great classics.The film does have some very corny lines, which it is hard to believe were not laughable even at the time it was made.
But Virginia City (the movie) misses all that and is more about a hogwash North/South duello between the characters played by Errol Flynn and Randolph Scott.
Murrell is played by Humphrey Bogart.Scott's contact person with the Virginian Southerners (led by Moroni Olsen and John Litel) is Miriam Hopkins, a dance hall singer.
Well, in a film headed with Errol Flynn, Randolph Scott, and Humphrey Bogart, the actual hero is none other than DOUGLAS DUMBRILLE..
Meantime, Captain Vance Irby (Randolph Scott of "She") and Julia Hayne (Miriam Hopkins of "Barbary Coast") devise an audacious scheme to transport $5-million in gold ingots from Virginia City to the South.
Meantime, Scott and Miriam Hopkins make arrangements to transport $5-million in gold ingots from Virginia City to the South, while Flynn and company try to stop them.
An Errol Flynn western that features Humphrey Bogart as a bandito.
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.