Virginia City

directed by Michael Curtiz
Category: "Western"
Year of Release:1940
Date Added:10/11/2025
Date Watched:10/11/2025
Description:Confederate Vance Irby (Randolph Scott) hears from saloon girl/spy Julia (Miriam Hopkins) that there's $5 million in gold in Virginia City, which the Confederacy desperately needs. Union soldier Kerry Bradford (Errol Flynn) also hears about the gold and goes to stop the Confederates from getting it. He ends up on the same stagecoach with Julia, and they fall in love—neither knowing the other's background. In Virginia City, they find out, but they still love each other. That doesn't stop Julia from turning Kerry over to Vance, who plans on bringing him back east to prison. Vance escapes with the gold in a wagon trail full of Confederate sympathizers, with the help of the outlaw band of John Murrell (Humphrey Bogart). Kerry and Julia both along. Kerry escapes and leads the cavalry to Vance's location just as Murrell and his band attack. The Union troops join the Confederates to fend them off. Irby and Murrell are both killed. When Kerry refuses to turn the gold over to the Union, he's court-martials (he plans on fulfilling Irby's dying wish to use it to rebuild the south). He's sentenced to death, but somehow Julia manages to travel all the way from Nevada to D.C., talk Lincoln into giving Kerry a pardon, and get back to Nevada in time to celebrate the end of the war with Kerry.
My Rating:5

Reviews for Virginia City

Review - Virginia City

Proving once again the theory that the more famous actors there are in a movie you've never heard of, the more likely it is to stink. About 20 minutes from the end, the plot stopped making any kind of sense. Kerry finds Irby's wagon train as it's being attacked by Murrell's outlaws. He and his men, including some uniformed Union soldiers, immediately join the Confederates and are welcomed into the group and even trusted with the whereabouts of the gold. It also made no sense that Kerry was willing to die rather than reveal the location of the gold. They tried to make him look noble, but he just looked stupid. The war was almost over (and he knew it), so why keep gold from his own government and pretend to hand it over to a South that no longer existed? Also, Humphrey Bogart began the movie with no accent but got increasingly "Mexican" as the movie went along. Very weird.
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