Manthast Absolutely amazing

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Motompa Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

DKosty123 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.

Jeff (actionrating.com) A great cast headlines this enjoyable Errol Flynn western. 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. Humphrey Bogart plays an amusing role as a villainous Hispanic bandit who also wants a piece of the gold. A bit cheesy in parts, but this is one of Flynn's better westerns. Not too shabby. 3 out of 5 action rating

chuck-reilly 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. It's all done with the usual cast of characters from the Warner Brothers stock company of actors including Alan Hale, Guinn Williams, John Litel etc. and directed by the great Michael Curtiz. Unfortunately, director Curtiz didn't put his usual effort into this film, probably because the script and story were of little interest to him. That said, it's still an above-average movie that certainly has its moments. The climactic battle between the desperate Southerners and their wagon train against a horde of Mexican banditos (led by Humphrey Bogart of all people) is well-staged. Before that happens, the long dreary journey through the desert by the Southerners as they slowly run out of water is quite effective and will jerk a few tears from even the most hardened viewers. "Virginia City" is more than an adequate western by today's standards, but it got somewhat lost in the shuffle back in 1940. As fine an actress as she was, Miriam Hopkins didn't always light the screen on fire. She was better-suited for playing the "other" woman than for being the love interest. Nevertheless, she does fine work in this movie and brings plenty of intelligence to her role. Randolph Scott is Flynn's nemesis in the film but he certainly isn't the "bad guy." That dubious honor falls to Humphrey Bogart. He's the leader of the Mexican bandits, but even with his sleazy mustache still looks like he belongs in downtown Manhattan. Flynn, as always, does what he can with the material and elevates the film with his mere presence and natural abilities. Unlike the real Civil War, it all ends happily in "Virginia City" thanks to good old Abe Lincoln. He pardons everyone before he heads to Ford's Theater.

jrbenneth It has been said, "a city on hill cannot hide itself" and Virginia City, Nevada, perched on the side of Mt. Davidson at 6200 ft. west of Tahoe, is a prime example, or in the context of the movie, should be. Virginia City exploded in the American dream as a shower of gold and silver, suspiciously the same year the Civil War began. It was the birthplace of the dean of American letters; it was where a young reporter named Samuel Clemens began using the name "Mark Twain" and went on to become America's most famous writer. It was also the birthplace of the great Hearst fortune, and the launching pad of John Mackay, who became the wealthiest man in America, the third wealthiest man in the world. Hey, they should have made the movie about him! In the 1860's Virginia CIty was THE boomtown of all boomtowns, the home of the big bonanza, at one time the largest "metropolitan" area west of St. Louis and East of San Francisco. 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. Flynn is Capt. Kerry Bradford, a Union officer who is a POW in a concentration camp run by a mean Confederate commander named Capt. Vance Irby, played by Scott. These two are always getting in each other's way. Bradford escapes and then tries to stop a shipment of gold bullion being "snuck" out of VC by who else other than . . . Irby! "Hey, what's he doing here!?" Horrible. Bogart plays a laughable Mexican bandit who can't decide who's side he's on. Miriam Hopkins plays a murky character named "Julia Hayne", obviously a historical lunge at the town's first lady, Julia Bulette, who in real life a celebrated prostitute. She goes to Washington and talks Honest Abe about saving BRADFORD (not Irby) from hanging and blah blah blah. Go figure. They shoulda hung the writer. In "real life" Twain reports that on the last day of the War, the setting sun caused the American flag atop Mt. Davidson to appear to the puzzled residents to be weirdly on fire, kind of like the movie. Three days later they discovered that on that day the South capitulated. One interesting quirk in the film is how sidekicks Alan Hale and Guin Williams flick their pistols forward when they shoot, like they're fishing, or trying to make the bullets go faster. Not a bad idea for the movie. The same kind of goofiness is lathered over sap and corn throughout the movie. Gosh, how could they miss the gold madness, profligate wealth, gun battles in the silver mines, Mark Twain getting run out of town and beat up after a showdown, the crooked railroad, the Opera House fire, Artemis Ward, Bulette's huge funeral, the Chinese tongs, the black saloons, the Auction . . ? All this high on a mountain surrounded by desert? The truth was unreal. Did its fabulous wealth actually spark the great American holocaust? Well, if you count this movie, it wouldn't be the first debacle to come out of Virginia City. It's a disappointment for Virginia City fans because it misses what made the town a "city of illusions," where it is said evil seeps out of the ground . . . Okay, other than that it's a fun movie. Flynn and the gang are always great no matter what history they're destroying. If Flynn would just play his rotten self I'd double my rating.