The Captive chronicles the life of a young woman named Sonia Martinovitch (Blanche Sweet) who lived during the midst of the Balkan Wars.

When the Ottoman army is driven out of the village, Hassan returns home to find that he has been stripped of his title, his land has been taken, and he has been banished from his homeland, all for thwarting the drunken officer's attack on Sonia.

Meanwhile, at the farm, a pack of unruly scavengers have burned the Martinovich family's modest house, forcing them to abandon their home.

[9] The praise from the press could partially be due to Sweet's familiarity with her co-star, House Peters, as they worked together on another film called Warrens of Virginia.

[10] Additionally, Motion Picture News claimed that “Blanche Sweet has scored the greatest success of her entire career in the photodramatization.” The sets and scenes were described as “elaborate … [and] produced with extreme realism.” [10] DeMille's obsession with realism backfired when an extra, Charles Chandler, was shot and killed by a gun used as a prop on set.

Later on, Blanche Sweet confessed that DeMille encouraged extras to use real bullets instead of blanks to create more realistic battle scenes.

In this example of their work, it is apparent that The Captive was designed with the intention of reusing costumes from an earlier film called The Unafraid.

[4] The film was thought to be lost until it was rediscovered in 1970 in the Paramount Pictures Vault and later donated to the Library of Congress[4] where the complete 35 mm copy is now held.