Release Date: May 16, 1940
Running Time: 121 minutes
Starring: Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott, Humphrey Bogart
Directed By: Michael Curtiz
Virginia City was meant to be a follow-up to the acclaimed 1939 western Dodge City and while both films have essentially the same crew working on them there is something lacking in the latter film that prevents it from the greatness the former has. For starters, none of the leads seems particularly excited to be involved in the picture, turning in mostly lackluster and uninspiring performances that don’t aid the already cumbersome plot. On top of that, the film has a message that it doesn’t know how to convey without outright spelling it out to the audience. Couple all this with an overlong run time and you have a film that misses the mark, albeit not by a lot.
The film begins with Captain Kerry Bradford (Errol Flynn) and his two sidekicks, Moorehead (Alan Hale) and Marblehead (Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams), escaping a confederate prison during the tale end of the Civil War. The leader of the prison, Captain Vance Irby (Randolph Scott) has a plan to escort a large shipment of gold from Virginia City, Nevada back to the confederacy to aid in extending the war. Bradford overhears about this and gets orders to track down the undercover southerners and prevent the smuggling.
Julia Hayne (Miriam Hopkins) is a dance hall singer who is also an undercover spy for the confederacy sent to Virginia City to aid in the smuggling operation. She meets Captain Bradford on the stage to Virginia City and he is instantly smitten with her. Vance uses this as an opportunity to set a trap for Bradford to get him out of the way and get the gold safely out of the city. He also offers a large sum of money to outlaw Murrell (Humphrey Bogart) to create a diversion so the gold can get through a blockade set up by the army and, while this works, Murrell has his own designs on the gold and arranges for his men to take it by force once the gold is past the blockade.
There are some terrific stunt sequences throughout the films overlong runtime. Early on while Bradford is traveling via coach to Virginia City there is a confrontation between him and Murrell. This leads to a runaway stage coach, a man jumping between the galloping horses as they speed out of control, another man being dragged underneath the carriage much like Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark would portray forty years later. This scene is tense, exciting and only makes large portions of the remainder of this film seem even more disappointing in comparison. Only the finale with Errol Flynn riding a horse down a steep drop off and falling head over heals while being pursued by confederates comes close to mirroring that energy and excitement.
Much of the rest of the film may have been more passable we’re the cast more lively. Flynn takes the bulk of the blame but that isn’t entirely fair. Randolph Scott is just there, not attempting at all to be much more than stoic and wooden, there to advance the plot but not anything more. He is a bit of an enigma as a character, there to move the gold out of the city but not appearing to have any real motivations other than duty to the south. At least Flynn has a few levels to his character, torn between his attraction to Julia and his duty to the Union Army. His final act, one that could cost him his life, serves both sides of the conflict without aiding either while the war rages on. It serves to show that he is a man with empathy towards the enemy rather than one who only sees faceless villains during the conflict.
The worse offender in this film, however is Humphrey Bogart. This is the type of role that generally would never come about this way in modern cinema and for good reason. Bogart is cast to play a Hispanic bandit leader complete with a heavy artificial accent that is downright offensive. It’s not a Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s offensive but it is up there. A phony accent and pencil mustache is all he is given to portray Hispanic and it is as bad as it sounds. This portrayal is best left in the past.
This film has so much going for it that it is a shame it turned out as mediocre as it did: a stellar crew both in front and behind the camera as well as first rate sets and stunt work. It tried to replicate the magic of Dodge City but lightning didn’t strike twice in this case and instead the final result is watchable but not particularly memorable. There are plenty of things to point the finger at but what it all boils down to is a lackluster script that the cast, as good as they usually are, just didn’t care to elevate.
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