The Salt of the Earth

This evening in my Labor and Film class we watched the movie "Salt of the Earth" which is a film about a mining labor union's fight against the unsafe working conditions in the mines.

What makes this movie interesting involves the history surrounding it.

The film was produced in 1954 by blacklisted Hollywood filmmakers which included director Herbert Biberman, producer Paul Jerrico, screenwriter Michael Wilson, and actor Will Geer.

Because of the McCarthy's "anticommunist hysteria," it was next to impossible for the producers to get mainstream actors or guilds men to work on its production, and getting funding was next to impossible. Most if not all filming had to be covertly completed due to the constant harassment from McCarthy's goon squads. Many, if not most of the shots were done in one take.

Some of the shots had to be completed in Mexico because Rosauria Revueltas,the lead Mexican female actress, had been deported due to mostly bogus claims that her passport did not have the correct information.

Overall, the film is a masterpiece considering what they had to go through to complete it.

Even when it was completed the film was, for the most part, kept underground until the 1960s.