This is a very good and watchable Warner Brothers Western that COULD have been a lot better if it had been a true sequel to the Flynn film, DODGE CITY. You see, just a year earlier Flynn and his two side-kicks, Alan Hale and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, had starred in the marvelous film DODGE CITY. At the very end, the trio (plus Olivia DeHavilland who is strangely absent from this next film) agree at the film's conclusion to leave Dodge City and move to Virginia City to bring the town law and order. Well, here there are again but the plot and characters have been changed so much it really isn't a sequel--even though it was announced as one in the previous film. It really looks like the writers never even saw the other film or read the script, as this time Errol and his buddies are not ex-Confederate soldiers, but Union spies! However, the mood and tempo of the two films are awfully similar. In fact, they are so similar that it is very, very easy to mix them up in your mind. As just one example, both feature a cute little boy in a "dead meat" role. In other words, they are nice kids who ultimately MUST be killed because that is part of the Hollywood formula. Apart from a small age difference, the two boys look almost exactly the same. The films also feature lawless towns and the same fearless trio who arrive to clean it up and do good. And, most of the rest of the actors are identical and play very, very similar parts!
So, here is an easy way to distinguish them--DODGE CITY is filmed in gorgeous Technicolor and VIRGINIA CITY features Humphrey Bogart as a swarthy Mexican bandit!!! Oh, and by the way, Bogart as a Mexican actually is a lot worse than it sounds!! When it comes to stupid casting decisions, this SHOULD rank up there with John Wayne as Genghis Khan or Katherine Hepburn as a Chinese woman or Liberace as a handsome leading man torn between his music and his woman, though oddly, the dumbness of this casting has mostly been forgotten over the years. Despite the movie being excellent overall, the few scenes where Bogart speaks are unintentionally hilarious.
Now, in addition to Bogart, there is another weakness in the film and that was the casting of Miriam Hopkins as Flynn's love interest. After having seen the immensely beautiful Olivia DeHavilland in the previous film, it really was odd that they would have chosen a woman who just looked old and not particularly attractive. I know this sounds cruel, but I just couldn't see Flynn falling for her. Plus, in DODGE CITY, they fortunately never got DeHavilland to sing but passed that chore on to Ann Sheridan--a woman with a very competent voice. But Miss Hopkins sang her own songs as a bar room chanteuse and sounded pretty awful. So I assumed that the guys in the bar have been pretty drunk to enjoy having her as their host.
Now despite all these many complaints, I still gave the movie a score of 7. This is possible due to the always wonderful acting of Flynn in his prime as well as the rest of the cast. Bogart and Hopkins aside, the cast was terrific (McHugh, Hale, Williams and others) and adding Randolph Scott to the mix was a very good thing. Good old fashioned Warner Brothers fun--not to be missed by fans of the genre.
So, here is an easy way to distinguish them--DODGE CITY is filmed in gorgeous Technicolor and VIRGINIA CITY features Humphrey Bogart as a swarthy Mexican bandit!!! Oh, and by the way, Bogart as a Mexican actually is a lot worse than it sounds!! When it comes to stupid casting decisions, this SHOULD rank up there with John Wayne as Genghis Khan or Katherine Hepburn as a Chinese woman or Liberace as a handsome leading man torn between his music and his woman, though oddly, the dumbness of this casting has mostly been forgotten over the years. Despite the movie being excellent overall, the few scenes where Bogart speaks are unintentionally hilarious.
Now, in addition to Bogart, there is another weakness in the film and that was the casting of Miriam Hopkins as Flynn's love interest. After having seen the immensely beautiful Olivia DeHavilland in the previous film, it really was odd that they would have chosen a woman who just looked old and not particularly attractive. I know this sounds cruel, but I just couldn't see Flynn falling for her. Plus, in DODGE CITY, they fortunately never got DeHavilland to sing but passed that chore on to Ann Sheridan--a woman with a very competent voice. But Miss Hopkins sang her own songs as a bar room chanteuse and sounded pretty awful. So I assumed that the guys in the bar have been pretty drunk to enjoy having her as their host.
Now despite all these many complaints, I still gave the movie a score of 7. This is possible due to the always wonderful acting of Flynn in his prime as well as the rest of the cast. Bogart and Hopkins aside, the cast was terrific (McHugh, Hale, Williams and others) and adding Randolph Scott to the mix was a very good thing. Good old fashioned Warner Brothers fun--not to be missed by fans of the genre.