Among the myriad pleasures of the most entertaining “Virginia City” (1940), which I review today as part of a new box set devoted to Errol Flynn’s forgotten westerns, is the only teaming of Warners’ top star with lowly contract player Humphrey Bogart in the role of a Mexican-accented bandit. Fans of gay subtext in Hollywood’s Golden Years more be even more interested in Flynn’s sole appearance opposite Randolph Scott, since both were reputedly bisexual and they throw off more sparks in their scenes together than with their mutual putative love interest, Miriam Hopkins. Miriam, then reputedly 38, was wrinkled enough to require ace cinematographer Tony Polito to break out heavy-duty diffusion filters, which is apparently why she’s seldom seen in a two-shot with her co-stars, especially the nine-years-younger Flynn. Buffs will also note that the ubiquitous character actor Charles Middleton — Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials — turns up as Jefferson Davis. Middleton had earlier played Abraham Lincoln for the studio in a bizarre WPA-boosting musical short with Dick Powell, Tom Lincoln in “Abe Lincoln in Illionis” and an actor playing Abe opposite Bogie in “Stand-In.” For “Virginia City” the role of Abe went to another busy character actor, Victor Killian, who decades later briefly became famous for playing Louise Lasser’s crazy grandpa on the TV serial “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”