Virginia City

Warner Brothers thought it had stumbled onto a formula with the success of 1939's big, brawling Dodge City, but when the company re-corralled star Errol Flynn and director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), the result was this woebegone dogie. Randolph Scott is a Civil War rebel trying to bring Nevada gold to the ailing Confederacy, Flynn's the Union spy out to stop him, and Miriam Hopkins — exuding all the sex appeal of a trout — is the plucky dance-hall gal who loves them both. Wagon trains, gunfights, stagecoach chases — there's nothing here you haven't seen before. Actually, there is one thing: Fourth-billed Humphrey Bogart is cast as a Mexican desperado, and believe me, you haven't lived until you've seen Bogie — with a Frito Bandito mustache and an inch of brown pancake — wrapping his mumble around lines like ''Maybe we geev them a leetle surprise, eh?'' On camp value alone, he raises this puppy to a C.