Just finished watching Salt of the Earth (1954) and absolutely loved it. I'd heard some things about it before watching, but decided to do some more research and share this wonderful film with you all.
For those who are unfamiliar, it centers on the strike of primarily Mexican-American workers in a Grant County, New Mexico mining town and stars Rosaura Revueltas as a miner's wife. It's loosely based on the real-life 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company.
Amazingly, the production only hired 5 professional actors. The rest of the cast was predominantly made up of Grant County locals and real-life miners and members of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (kicked out of the CIO for being "too communist"). Revueltas's co-star, Juan Chacón, was a first-time actor, union local president, and Communist Party member. Clinton Jencks--who was prosecuted for allegedly falsifying a Taft-Hartley non-communist affidavit as retribution for his role in the real-life strike & subsequent movie production--and his wife Virginia played characters based on themselves. Many of the other actors actually participated in the 1951 strike, though very little information about them is publicly available, unfortunately.
Herbert J. Biberman (director, of Hollywood Ten infamy), Paul Jarrico (producer), Michael Wilson (screenwriter), and Will Geer (actor) were all already blacklisted when this film was made, and the film was only shown in 12 American theaters upon release. Revueltas was harassed, deported, and eventually blacklisted from the U.S. film industry for her (outstanding) performance in this movie. Without getting into the entire production history (which is pretty interesting and worthy of its own post), it suffices to say that anti-communist forces did absolutely everything they could to squash this movie during it's creation and punish those who were involved after the fact.
This film is a triumph of working class solidarity and perseverance in the face of relentless capitalist opposition--both in regards to it's odyssey of a production and the content of the movie itself. Its unabashed and heartfelt celebration and recognition of working class people had me legit in tears at points. Unlike anything else I've ever seen, it tells an uncompromising story of working people who were out there fighting with everything they had.
I could not recommend this highly enough--seriously, go, watch it, now! And I'd love if anyone has recommendations that might scratch a similar itch.
Salt of the Earth - A Working Class Triumph
Re: Salt of the Earth - A Working Class Triumph
I'm so glad you posted this! I watched this a couple of years ago in a college class and I remember loving it and being surprised that we talked about it. I had completely forgotten about it until now :)
Re: Salt of the Earth - A Working Class Triumph
Of course!! I can’t believe this movie isn’t more widely known in socialist circles—it really should be a required watch. Though I guess it’s understandable in the sense that it has been so heavily censored in the US.
What an awesome professor to show this in a class though! It takes some pretty uncompromising stances so I’d imagine it would rub certain folks the wrong way.