Virginia City is a 1940 American Western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott, and a mustachioed Humphrey Bogart in the role of the real-life outlaw John Murrell. Based on a screenplay by Robert Buckner, the film is about a Union officer who escapes from a Confederate prison and is sent to Virginia City from where his former prison commander is planning to send five million dollars in gold to Virginia to save the Confederacy. The film premiered in its namesake, Virginia City, Nevada.
Union officer Kerry Bradford (Errol Flynn) stages a daring escape from a Confederate prison run by prison commander Vance Irby (Randolph Scott) after learning that the rebels plan to smuggle five million dollars in gold from Virginia City, Nevada (in Union territory), to Texas, from where it can be shipped to Richmond, Virginia to aid the Confederate war effort. Bradford reports to Union headquarters and is immediately sent to Virginia City to determine where the gold is being kept. On the stagecoach, he meets and falls in love with the elegant Julia Hayne (Miriam Hopkins), who unbeknownst to him is in fact a dance-hall girl—and a rebel spy! Also on the stagecoach is the legendary John Murrell (Humphrey Bogart), leader of a gang of "banditos" traveling as a gun salesman. Before he and his gang can rob the stage, Bradford gets the drop on them and they escape empty-handed.