Newspaper editor and co-owner Jim Austin and his wife are fleeing Kennington, where they live and work, so that he may testify before a U.S. Senate Special Committee investigating crime in interstate commerce. They are being pursued by the criminal element from their town and pull off the highway in a place called Warren, where they take refuge in a police station. Austin requests an escort to ensure they arrive safely at the committee location. He also gets permission to use the station's tape recorder, on which he chronicles the events which have brought him to this point.

Austin began investigating bookmaking in town after the suspicious death of private detective Clyde Nelson, who discovered police complicity with illegal gambling while working a divorce case for a Mrs. Sirak. Her ex-husband, Murray Sirak, happened to be the major bookmaker in Kennington.

Austin questioned the police response to Nelson's death, then began an investigation himself after being goaded by the Chief of Police. Austin discovered that mafia-affiliated gangster Dominick Fabretti had moved into town, then Sirak attempted to squelch Austin's activity with a bribe, and Austin and his wife were continually harassed.

The city fathers, the police, and the respectable elements of the community all consented to the gambling, arguing that betting is inevitable, and that exposing it would injure the city's reputation. Mrs. Sirak was murdered after she agreed to disclose that Fabretti was responsible for Nelson's murder. Austin's partner at the newspaper dropped his support for Austin because they are losing advertisers and vendors due to his crusade.

To stop Fabretti and his activities, Austin's final recourse was an appeal for help from the local ministers. When even they declined to get involved, Austin decided to appeal to the Senate Crime Commission at the Capital. A grave threat from Sirak spurred Austin and his wife to flee in the middle of the night, followed by Fabretti's henchmen.

They do get the requested police escort, and safely make it to the commission hearing.

• John Forsythe as Jim Austin
• Joan Camden as Marge Austin
• Harold J. Kennedy as Don Carey
• Marjorie Crossland as Mrs. Sirak
• Victor Sutherland as Murray Sirak
• Ray Teal as Chief Gillette
• Martin Milner as Phil Harding
• Geraldine Hall as Mrs. Nelson
• Hal K. Dawson as Clyde Nelson
• Ian Wolfe as Rev. Nash
• Gladys Hurlbut as Linda Purcy
• Jess Kirkpatrick as Anderson
• Paul Newlan as Krug
• Frances Morris as Mrs. Harding
• Paul Brinegar as Police Sergeant
• Paul Goldwater as Sally Carey
• Robert Gorell as Joe Berg
• Glenn Judd as Coverly
• William C. Miller as Coroner

The screenplay of The Captive City was inspired by the Kefauver Committee's hearings.^[3] The television broadcast of the hearings attracted huge public interest and educated a broad audience about the issues of municipal corruption and organized crime. The tremendous success of the broadcast led to the production of a whole cycle of "exposé" crime films dealing with the dismantling of complex criminal organizations by law enforcement.^[4][5]

The Captive City had the blessing of senator Kefauver himself: Robert Wise took a print of the film to Washington D. C. to show to senator Kefauver, who not only endorsed it but even gives a written statement in the prologue and appears in the epilogue, cautioning audiences about the evils of organized crime.^[6]

Other notable examples of exposé films include Hoodlum Empire (1952) and The Turning Point (1952).

• The Captive City at IMDb  
• The Captive City at AllMovie
• The Captive City at the TCM Movie Database
• The Captive City at the American Film Institute Catalog
• The Captive City film scene on YouTube