Virginia City (1940)

Bogie? As a Mexican Bandito? What the heck was Warner Bros. thinking?

It's interesting that a 24-movie boxed set devoted to Humphrey Bogart showcases various films in which Bogie is overlooked or misused. Case in point, Virginia City (1940) a Michael Curtiz movie that would have been another Errolivia (Errol Flynn & Olivia de Havilland) vehicle were it not for de Havilland being fed up with Errolivia pictures altogether. Curtiz wasn't an actor's kind of director. He didn't care for them and they didn't care for him. And Jack Warner, one of the heads of Warner Bros. studio, wasn't an actor's kind of guy either. Jack Warner was particularly notorious for making actor's lives miserable by "guiding" their careers with a heavy hand. Olivia de Havilland had quite a difficult time with him and she had to fight tooth and nail to be lent out to play Melanie in Gone with the Wind (1939). And Bette Davis's career was put on hold when she went into an all out battle against Warner Bros. and what she deemed were the pathetic roles they were giving her (I actually prefer the blonde and spunky Bette Davis to the older more cynical brunette Bette). Humphrey Bogart didn't have the greatest time with Warner Bros. either. They didn't know what to do with him and tossed him around from picture to picture giving him a variety of small roles. Eventually the movie-going public caught on to the wonder that is Bogie and his fame exploded. But before then, he was stuck in roles like Mexican bandito John Murrell in Virginia City (1940). Paul, over at Art, Movies, Wood and Whatnot... loves this movie and recommended it to me after I watched Dodge City (1939). Dodge City is a Curtiz-Errolivia picture which in my opinion is better than Virginia City. Both films are very similar and seeing as they are 1 year apart, I felt like Virginia City was a follow up to Dodge City. Each film is named after a city although Dodge City spends more time in the actual city whereas Virginia City has more wanderlust. Both films feature the save-the-day hero Errol Flynn who has an appropriate (if not fiesty) love interest. Both also feature a young boy being hurt (the death of innocence out in the West?) and a bandit or troublemaker who takes the law into his own hands. But it's only in Virginia City in which you will see see Bogie, with a Spanish-style mustache trying to talk in a Mexican accent but failing miserable as his iconic New York accent breaks through.