Review of Salt of the Earth (1954)
Seen in 2026.
Nex Mexico miners go on strike over cutbacks that threaten their safety. When the Taft–Hartley act passes, it forbids the miners themselves to be on the picket line. Their wives are not forbidden, but they have their own struggles for the same equality.
A propaganda film co-sponsored by the union itself, this is an initially awkward combination of a drama with normative and didactic ambitions. The villains are clearly identified and unredeemed: A scab, the local sheriff, and the uniformly “Anglo” representatives of corporate management, from the foreman on up. The heroes are also clearly identified, but they are allowed more human flaws, especially Ramón Quintero, the male lead and most active member of the union, played by a real-life local union president who participated in the strike that inspired the script. Ramón’s wife, the protagonist, is saintly, so Ramón’s flaws of personality are critical to the artistic value of the movie, but the main reason to see it is for its production.
Salt of the Earth is one of the first fully independent films made outside of the Hollywood studio system. In 1947, when Taft–Hartley passed, the director of the film refused to answer questions from HUAC and was blacklisted as one of the Hollywood Ten. Production began after Howard Hughes had doomed the studio system in 1948, but it still had a rocky start. Members of Hollywood’s own unions were not allowed to work on the project, because business interests opposed its feminist and socialist messages, which would still be controversial in New Mexico today. The company that made it, the Independent Productions Corporation, finished no other films. It’s a unique project, and the opportunity was not wasted.