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16 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
The Rich Man's Roy Rogers!, 2 June 2009
7/10
Author: jpdoherty from Ireland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

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 cloour!

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14 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
Bogart final appearance in a Western…, 16 April 2005
7/10
Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"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…

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13 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
Great idea put on screen, good casting, save Bogart as an Mexican-American bandit., 7 February 2004
7/10
Author: Mickey-2 from Front Royal, VA

"Virginia City", released in 1940, is a film that could have been rated as a western classic, because of the cast members alone. 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. Flynn breaks out of a Confederate prison commanded by Scott during the latter days of 1864, a period that saw the South's dwindling resources virtually shrink to nothing. There is a slim chance to smuggle a multi-million gold shipment from Virginia City, Nevada, to the South. Scott is given the assignment, and Flynn, hearing of the plan, is given the job by the Union to prevent the smuggled gold from reaching the Confederacy. There's the overview. The weakness comes in casting Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican-American bandit whose main interest in the gold is to steal it for himself. 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. Add a stirring music score by Max Steiner, plus sweeping vistas of the West, and the struggles of the Confederate sympathizers in their efforts to succeed in their task, and you have a film that could have been great, but one that falls short. It is worth watching, however. 7/10

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
It makes you want to go back to the days of big studios, 7 October 2008
10/10
Author: tmwest from S. Paulo, Brazil

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. Virginia City is no exception and it is a shame it is in black and white, specially that it shows the Grand Canyon. If the cinematography would be on the same level as "Rocky Mountain" the B*W would be more acceptable. Contrary to some comments I did not find Humprey Bogart's performance bad, it is just not what we expect of him considering the big star he became. Just forget that Murrell, the bandit is Bogart and it is OK. Great music by Max Steiner. 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. Flynn and his friends from Dodge, Alan Hale and Big Boy Williams are as good as always. But best of all is the level of quality attained by Warner , which is superior to almost all t westerns ever done after. It makes you want to go back to the days of big studios.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Despite what you might think, not a sequel to DODGE CITY and features the weirdest casting choice I've seen in some time!, 26 August 2006
7/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

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.

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Three Movie Icons Going For The Gold, 11 November 2006
5/10
Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

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. Olivia DeHavilland chose not to make the trip. At that point in her career she was fighting with Jack Warner to not keep playing crinolined heroines. So Miriam Hopkins was the leading lady here.

Other reviewers have said how lousy Miriam Hopkins was as a singing saloon chanteuse. In fairness to Miriam I have to point out that she's a Confederate spy singing a Union song, The Battle Cry of Freedom with about as much enthusiasm as she can muster. And she's also in that establishment the Sazerac saloon, not being paid for her voice.

Errol Flynn, a former prisoner at the Confederacy's Libby Prison, after an escape gets an assignment to check out rumors that Southern sympathizing mine owners are going to smuggle their find into the Confederacy. At the same time the former commandant of Libby, Randolph Scott, gets an assignment to bring the gold out.

Of course when they meet at the Sazerac all pretense to undercover is out the window. But Scott's got an ace up his sleeve in Miriam Hopkins who Flynn is kind of sweet on. She leads Errol astray and into the Confederate hands. 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. Bogey was also fighting for some better roles and in fact he got one the same year in High Sierra that would turn his career around. What possessed Jack Warner to cast him in this role, God only knows. Bogey's looks dumb in this part and he knows it. Why couldn't they just get someone like Gilbert Roland for the part?

There's quite a shootout in the desert over the gold. What happens to it is rather unbelievable, let's just say that Errol Flynn took a great deal upon himself and he was quite the lucky fellow to get the fate he got.

Virginia City is entertaining enough in a B western sort of way. 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.

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6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
"Too bad you and I had to be on opposite sides of the fence in this, I think we might have been friends.", 30 November 2005
8/10
Author: classicsoncall from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

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.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Plot-heavy Flynn western with badly cast Hopkins and Bogart..., 20 August 2009
6/10
Author: Neil Doyle from U.S.A.

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. Only the main theme heard over the credits is the single original composition for the whole film. 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. Hopkins can barely carry a tune and is clearly a bit over-aged for this kind of role. The other unfortunate miscasting is Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican bandit giving accented orders to his henchmen in an accent that barely conceals his Brooklynesque speech. Bogie looks extremely uncomfortable in the role.

Flynn is fine, managing to disguise the fact that there is absolutely no chemistry between him and Hopkins, who eyes him with cold disdain for the climactic close-up of the two holding hands. What were they thinking? The usual Warner stable of contract players delivers their lines on cue with panache but it's really no use. It's all been done before and doesn't even have the benefit of Technicolor to make good use of those striking outdoor location sites.

Only die-hard fans of Flynn and Scott will worship this one.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
A lively western, with an energetic Errol Flynn and the miscast but fascinating Miriam Hopkins, 1 September 2008
7/10
Author: Terrell-4 from San Antonio, Texas

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

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.

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Flynn makes all better,, 20 October 2009
8/10
Author: bobsgrock from United States

Those who are not used to classic Hollywood productions will probably shun this picture if only because the plot is somewhat complex and there are some glaring mistakes. 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. This creates for some great tension scenes which I found very provocative between Flynn and Randolph Scott as the leader of the Southerners. 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. Curtiz certainly knows how to stage action scenes and those here are some of his best. Of course, like most others, this film belongs to Flynn. He is one of the most charismatic and likable leading men ever and his talents are at their best here. He is one of the very few actors who can make a film better simply with his presence. This one is no exception.

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