Produced in the period just after the United States entered World War II, it was meant to alert Americans to the dangers of foreign agents.

The story, set in late 1941, follows Los Angeles cop Michael Steele (Preston Foster) as he investigates a series of crimes involving the local Japanese-American community.

The story gradually reveals that the crimes are to cover up a Japanese-American cabal's efforts to facilitate Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The movie ends extolling the necessity for the internment, with Maris commenting on her radio show that loyal Japanese-Americans must suffer along with the disloyal in the interest of national security.

Filmed in the months immediately following Pearl Harbor, Twentieth Century Fox's Little Tokyo U.S.A. was termed "63 minutes' worth of speculation about prewar Japanese espionage activities" by The New York Times.