The Captive City

Shot on a shoestring budget The Captive City features the starring film debut of John Forsythe. It also has the endorsement of Senator Estes Kefauver who was busy running for president at the time when it made it's debut on April 11, 1952.

Forsythe plays the editor of a smalltown newspaper who gets a story from a private investigator on a divorce case. He's representing the wife of a local bookie suing for divorce and he's being hassled by some very big muscle way out of proportion. When the PI is run down by a car, Forsythe pursues the story.

Against the advice of one and all. But what has happened is that this local bookie played by Victor Sutherland has taken on the syndicate as a partner. These folks make all kinds of threats laced with intimidation.

Forsythe does a nice job as the crusading editor whose only real support in the town is his wife Joan Camden. A few familiar faces like Martin Milner, Ray Teal, and Ian Wolfe are in the cast, but the performance best remembered will be that of Marjorie Crossland as Sutherland's wife. She's a truly frightened woman and has reason to be.

Estes Kefauver chair of the special Senate committee investigating organized crime introduced and provided a conclusion for the film. Kefauver was also running for president and racking up a string of primary victories when this film was released. The Captive City turned out to be a great campaign commercial. His party drafted Adlai Stevenson to stop him and in 1952 America liked Ike best of all.

Still The Captive City is a fine film, a good suspenseful noir,.

Directed by Robert Wise, The Captive City is a B movie done in the noir documentary style about a newspaper editor, Jim Austin (Forsythe) who is visited by a detective. The detective claims to be in danger from the police and is being harassed by them due to information he has about crime in the city. Austin brushes him off, but when the man winds up dead he starts asking questions. This leads him to a bookie operation and the hold that organized crime has on the city.

Okay movie and lots of fun to see people who went on to TV careers here - Forsythe for one, Martin Milner as a newspaper photographer, Ray Teal, Paul Brinegar. Estes Kefauver makes a guest appearance to tell us this was a true story. One of the actors, Harold J. Kennedy, was a theater director who wrote a hysterical book on theater called "No Pickle, No Performance."

Given the times we live in today, it's inspiring to see David go up against Goliath.

Robert Wise directs but without much enthusiasm and Lee Garmes, the cinematographer has little opportunity to show his skill. Indeed, this little B movie, I hesitate to use the much overused 'noir' tag, is most uninspired. Prompted, apparently, by the real life Senate Committee on organised crime and even sporting an afterword by the real life head of that committee, Senator Estes Kefauver, urging American citizens to play their part in stamping out such crime in their neighbourhoods, this still lacks a bit of 'life'. John Forsythe doesn't help with a lacklustre performance as the lead and Joan Camden even less so as his wife. The thing here is that this was clearly intended as a well meaning do good kind of a film, setting out the problem and urging everyone to help solve it. To help things along at one point the wife asks her husband, 'What is the mafia?' so there's little doubt at what level this film was aimed. Competent but far too uninteresting a story and with no violence the 'real life' message is about all this has.

An atmospheric dramatisation of the revelations about the activities of the mafia in the United States investigated by Senator Estes Kefauver; who set his seal of approval on the venture by putting in a special appearance as himself.

The sensitive subject matter meant raising even a shoestring budget took more time and effort than actually making the film itself; but enhanced the atmosphere of the film itself with glacial documentary-style deep focus location work by veteran cameraman Lee Garmes.

Bernard Herrmann was keen to score it but they couldn't afford him, hence the incongruously playful music recognisably the work of 'Big Country' composer Jerome Moross.

Small town newspaper publisher John Forsyth runs afoul of gangsters when he investigates the death of a private investigator who was trying to help main gangster Victor Sutherland's ex-wife. Forsyth discovers that pretty much everyone in town is somehow involved in Sutherland's gambling operations and he attracts the ire of the local police. He eventually has to flee town with his wife (Joan Camden) and seek refuge with a US Senate committee investigating organized crime.

One of several films made to capitalize on the public interest in Estes Kefauver's investigations of organized crime, this film even has his personal endorsement. Kefauver pops up at the end to lecture us on the evils of illegal gambling. Not exactly a big surprise since this kind of feels like the sort of film that would end with a lecture from a US Senator. It starts out well with Forsyth and Camden fleeing for their lives and taking refuge at a police station where the story unfolds in flashback, but once the plot really kicks in, it feels very repetitive. Forsyth asks for help ... he doesn't get it ... wash, rinse, repeat.