The Captive City was a great fast-paced crime movie based on the real-life Kefauver Committee Hearings to take down organized crime. The movie certainly starts out in a way to capture the audience. A newspaper man, Jim Austin, and his wife are fleeing their home and take refuge in a police station as they are being pursued by the criminal elements he is about to testify against. At the police station Austin requests a recorder so he may dictate the events that have just taken place. It is very reminiscent of the opening of Double Indemnity (1944). Thus begins Austin's story, as he takes us through what brought them to this point - and we are happily along for the ride.
Local private detective Clyde Nelson approaches Austin with stories of the mob and local payoffs and corruption, and seeks his help to uncover the story. Austin doesn't believe the small-town dic, and takes a look. Nelson had been working on an apparently harmless divorce case, and discovered the existence of a big-time gambling syndicate operating with the consent of the city fathers, the local police, and the respectable elements of the community. When Nelson is killed in a hit-and-run Austin takes a closer look, as he wonders if there is more to Nelson's story and death. Throughout the course of his investigation, he is harassed and threatened; and when others decide to help, they also suffer.
The storyline is captivating throughout the whole movie. Although we are now well aware of wide-spread corruption, it still seems shocking. Perhaps because this didn't happen in New York or Chicago. It happened in a small town, which - as scary as it is - means, it could happen anywhere.
