Virginia City

Late in the Civil War, the Union officer Kerry Bradford escapes from a Confederate prison. What he has learned is this: five million dollars in gold is to be sent south from Virginia City in Nevada. Bradford sets out to stop the shipment. Two obstacles stand in his way: a woman working in the town as a singer while gathering information for the Confederacy, and a bandit who wants the gold for himself. Michael Curtiz, Errol Flynn and Alan Hale are together again two years after Robin Hood. What the film is most discussed for now is a casting decision: Humphrey Bogart plays the Mexican bandit John Murrell in a false moustache and a strained accent, and the part is counted among the worst choices of his career. In those years Bogart was still being handed roles he did not want at Warner; two years later that would change completely. The rest is a properly functioning, well-shot studio Western.