Directed by Michael Curtiz and written by Robert Buckner, this Warner Bros. drama features the unusual casting of Humphrey Bogart as a bandito named John Murrell, who unintentionally heals the conflict between Errol Flynn's Union Captain Kerry Bradford and Randolph Scott's Confederate Captain Vance Irby, after their Civil War moves west to Nevada's wild (and movie titled) outpost.
Miriam Hopkins plays the conflicted Julia Hayne. As a saloon singer in the Northern leaning town, Julia conceals the fact that she's the daughter of a deceased Confederate colonel. Indeed, she's just proposed a plan to have Irby transport $5 million in gold from Confederate sympathizers, aka "Copperheads", in Nevada City to Jefferson Davis (Charles Middleton) and the nearly bankrupt Confederacy in the east.
But after 21 days of riding back west in a stagecoach with Bradford, a Union spy who suspects that such a plan is in the works, and innocently falling in love with him, she has second thoughts. Still, she helps Irby capture Bradford, who's forced to ride on the very wagon train of gold he and his (comic relief) sidekicks (Alan Hale, of course, and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams) were trying to stop.
Murrell and his murdering gang of bandits intercept the convoy forcing North and South to join forces before the (cliché) cavalry shows up to save the day.
Frank McHugh appears as another passenger on the westbound coach; John Litel, Douglas Dumbrille, Moroni Olsen, Dickie Jones, Russell Simpson, and Victor Kilian (as the unmistakable voice of Abraham Lincoln, no less) also appear among the credited cast while Ward Bond and Charles Halton are among the dozens of uncredited actors in the cast.
Miriam Hopkins plays the conflicted Julia Hayne. As a saloon singer in the Northern leaning town, Julia conceals the fact that she's the daughter of a deceased Confederate colonel. Indeed, she's just proposed a plan to have Irby transport $5 million in gold from Confederate sympathizers, aka "Copperheads", in Nevada City to Jefferson Davis (Charles Middleton) and the nearly bankrupt Confederacy in the east.
But after 21 days of riding back west in a stagecoach with Bradford, a Union spy who suspects that such a plan is in the works, and innocently falling in love with him, she has second thoughts. Still, she helps Irby capture Bradford, who's forced to ride on the very wagon train of gold he and his (comic relief) sidekicks (Alan Hale, of course, and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams) were trying to stop.
Murrell and his murdering gang of bandits intercept the convoy forcing North and South to join forces before the (cliché) cavalry shows up to save the day.
Frank McHugh appears as another passenger on the westbound coach; John Litel, Douglas Dumbrille, Moroni Olsen, Dickie Jones, Russell Simpson, and Victor Kilian (as the unmistakable voice of Abraham Lincoln, no less) also appear among the credited cast while Ward Bond and Charles Halton are among the dozens of uncredited actors in the cast.