"VIRGINIA CITY"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24450, 8 November 1940, Page 9

"VIRGINIA CITY"

"Virginia City," saga of the west, will have its first screening at the Empire Theatre to-day. Near the close of the American Civil War southern sympathisers in the wide, open mining town of Virginia City, Nevada, have Contributed 5,000,000 dollars in gold to the confederate (southern) cause, through the efforts of Julia Haynes (Miriam Hopkins), a lovely confederate spy posing as an entertainer in the notorious Sazerac Cafe. Kerry Bradford (Errol Flynn), a Union officer incarcerated in Libby prison in Richmond, gets wind of the plan to transport the gold from Nevada, and breaks out of prison to try to stop it. En route to Virginia City by coach he meets Julia, and they fall in love. After they arrive there, however, she learns his identity from Vance Irby (Randolph Scott), confederate officer charged with the task of smuggling out the gold, and helps him trap Kerry and take him prisoner, so that he cannot interfere with their plans. Irby also hires Murrell (Humphrey Bogart), notorious bandit, to attack the union garrison just outside Virginia City. This distracts the union troops and gives the train of covered wagons carrying the gold a chance to escape. Kerry goes along as a prisoner, but later, when the doublecrossing Murrell and his band attack the gold train, Kerry fights side by side with the southerners. Vance is wounded, and Kerry takes command. ' Then union troops arrive, but he refuses to surrender the gold to his superior officer, insisting that it belongs to the men who mined it. He is to be court-martialled, when news comes that the war is ended. No longer enemies, he and Julia are now free to marry.