Edgar Allan Pooh . . . a couple of the previous year's most mendacious snooze-fests, STAGECOACH and GONE WITH THE WIND. If you can picture Humphrey Bogart playing the Ringo Kid with a cheesy Mexican accent while Scarlett O'Hara is Can-Can Dancing as a Saloon Hooker, you pretty much can visualize Warner's revisionist flick, VIRGINIA CITY. Throw in Randolph Scott anticipating Henry Fonda's Last Stand in FORT APACHE, and your VIRGINIA CITY synopsis is fairly complete. So what, may you ask, are Warner's messages here? Just as Warner warned us this month about corrupt job-killing corporate automatons, calling these Deplorable Creatures "Soul-less Replicants" in BLADE RUNNER 2049, Warner warns us against America's Racist Southern Confederate Traitor Faction with VIRGINIA CITY. These Fascist Neanderthals are no more human than Replicants, Warner suggests, as they allow their young to die like dogs in the desert if it serves their financial purpose. When "Cobby Gill, age 11" kicks the bucket in great pain after gross neglect from his adult guardians 1:37:31 into VIRGINIA CITY, it brings to mind the married Repug Party U.S. Congressman who stated this week that abortions should be illegal for ALL American women EXCEPT his own pregnant mistress! That's why Warner has Errol Flynn bury all of the Confederates' ill-gotten wealth under a man-made landslide in order to preserve it for Today's True Blue Loyal Patriotic Normal Average 99 Per Center Silent Majority Progressive Union Label Americans. Warner's scene between Fifth Columnist Quisling Julia Hayne and Abe Lincoln lays down the Law: ALL of the Heartless Racists such as Julia MUST be stripped of their American Citizenship for High Treason against our Constitution, and deported like any other Alien Traitor to Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf B, while their Gold and Other Assets are seized under the U.S. Civil Forfeiture Statutes and divvied up for Reparations and to pay off the National Debt that they've run up at the expense of the so-called Blue Donor States!

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

vincentlynch-moonoi When I was a child back in the 1950s, Westerns were the big thing. But, like the rest of America, as I grew older I gave up watching Westerns...except for once in a while when a Western came along with big stars, high production values, and a story that was a little different. This film has all those qualities.Let's begin with the cast. Errol Flynn was in his prime years when he made this film, and it's obvious why he was such a tremendous star. Miriam Hopkins, who is either really good or really lousy in each of her films, is very good here as a Southern belle working to save the Confederacy (type casting? She was a native of Savannah, Georgia). Randolph Scott is excellent as the Confederate who is attempting to ship gold back to Richmond to save the Confederacy. Humphrey Bogart, unfortunately, is terribly miscast as a stagecoach robber who gets mixed up in the Confederates versus Yankees, but this was just one year before he hit it big with films such as "The Maltese Falcon". Frank McHugh is here, although one wonders why...but at least he is not as annoying as he sometimes was. Alan Hale is great as Flynn's sidekick...perhaps only second (next to Gabby Hayes) as sidekicks go. Even the minor players do well here.Then there's the history of what is really a mix of a Civil War story and a Western. The early part of the film at the prison in Richmond is fairly accurate, although Richmond doesn't have moss hanging from the trees, and the river that flows through the city doesn't look like that at all. But much of the info about he prison is pretty close to real history.Production values here are very high. The scenes in red rock country -- what a shame they weren't filmed in color! And then there's the plot, which is on the unique side! 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. And in the middle, a woman (naturally)...Miriam Hopkins. Hopkins proves she couldn't sing, but she had pretty nice legs...way up there! And, interestingly, the rebels are portrayed fairly -- as people who are simply on the other side of the tragedy of the Civil War.This is a rip-snortin' Western well worth watching and having on your DVD shelf...particularly because of Errol Flynn in his prime.

Dave from Ottawa Rather dated by modern standards, with badly staged shootouts and obvious rear projection setups for when the stars are in close-up, this is still a fairly entertaining olde tyme western, thanks to a strong dash of Civil War intrigue, some (then) cutting edge work by legendary western stunt director Yakima Canutt and some truly magnificent desert scenery. Director Michael Curtiz was the model of an economical studio director and produced his usual smooth results. The movie looks good, moves efficiently and shows no evidence of flab or waste. Errol Flynn is likable as ever as a Union officer on the trail of a confederate gold shipment. Flynn was never long on acting chops, but he had a lot of amiability on screen and here he is at something close to his best. Randolph Scott is also very good as his opposite number, a stalwart Rebel captain with a plan to keep the bankrupt Confederacy in the war business. Unfortunately, the rest of the casting was a major weakness. Humphrey Bogart, a year before his star-making break in The Maltese Falcon, is here badly miscast as a Mexican bandit (I am not making this up) complete with cheesy moustache and even cheesier accent. And that's not the worst. Miriam Hopkins once again begs the question as to how she got to be a top-billed movie star. Ordinary looking and one- dimensionally earnest, she demonstrates no hint of that special uniqueness that ear-marks a movie star, and in her two rather embarrassing musical numbers fails to hint at a talent for either dancing or singing. If Judy Garland represents an 'A', and, let's say Betty Hutton gets a 'B', Hopkins would be hard pressed to crack a 'D-'. But if you can overlook the deficiencies of its leading actress, this is an efficient piece of old fashioned family entertainment of a sort not produced in a long time.