The film was announced in Boxoffice magazine in the May 30, 1942 issue: "'The Seventh Column,' a story based on exploits of General Draža Mihailović, Yugoslav guerilla leader."

Serb Yugoslav Army colonel Draža Mihailović forms a band of guerrillas known as the Chetniks, who launch a resistance movement against the Axis occupation.

Mihailović then radios the German headquarters in the nearby coastal town of Kotor in Montenegro and offers to exchange Italian POWs for gasoline.

Brockner, who has been unable to capture Mihailović, is convinced that the Yugoslav leader's wife Ljubica and their two children, Nada and Mirko, are hiding in Kotor.

Brockner warns the townspeople that anyone caught aiding the Mihailović family will be executed, and prepares the deportation of 2,000 men from Kotor to Nazi Germany.

Mihailović then reveals to the general that the Chetniks are holding his wife and daughter as hostages, as well as Brockner's mistress, and that they will be executed unless the citizens of Kotor are given food.

After taking Mirko into custody, von Bauer and Brockner escort Ljubica to Mihailović's mountain stronghold and then inform him that every man, woman, and child in Kotor would be executed unless the Chetniks surrender within 18 hours.

In the final scene, Mihailović broadcasts a radio message to his fellow Yugoslavs that the guerrillas will continue fighting until they have regained complete freedom for their people and driven out the invading Axis troops.

Erickson wrote that the movie portrayed Draža Mihailović as “a selfless idealist, leading his resistance troops, known as the Chetniks, on one raid after another against the Germans during WWII.”[3] The movie was reviewed favorably in the Los Angeles entertainment trade paper The Hollywood Reporter when released in 1943: "Seldom has Hollywood given attention to a motion picture that offered more stirring material than this first feature about a living military hero of World War II."

In a review in the Chicago Daily Tribune on April 1, 1943, "Chetniks' Story Is Dramatically Told in Movie 'CHETNIKS'", Mae Tinee wrote: "This is a fiercely satisfying picture.