SALT OF THE EARTH (1954)

🎶Let's drink to the hard-working people, Let's think of the lowly of birth

Spare a thought for the rag taggy people, Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Let's drink to the hard-working people, Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Let's drink to the two thousand million, Let's think of the humble of birth 🎶

I waited both too long and at the same time for just the moment to watch Herbert J Biberman's Salt of the Earth, which is quite possibly the only "Blacklisted" film of the mid 1950's, though made exactly by Blacklisted filmmakers and the writer Michael Wilson to show America as well as the world "hey, *this* is what they are afraid of: the workers of the world!" 

While this is a film that would speak to me even seeing it as a younger person, it is so important to have these lessons and ideals in 2025 - under this rancid wart that occupies the White House, worker's rights and unions are under attack more than ever - and now that I have been in a union myself for the past decade and change (go AFT!) the fight represented here is inspiring.

Yet there is something else that is much more compelling and captivating about the film and Wilson's research and script that makes this more memorable than just a story of a Strike. It is a story of a community and how everyone has to come together, eventually and at some form or another, and that gender and the politics around that, not to mention what was then of course Feminism but didn't have all the connotations that came in decades since, is inextricably linked to the largely Mexican and some White miners striking for fair wages and decent working conditions and safety.

Perhaps there are some flaws in the writing (some of that narration/voice over is a little over bearing, no fault Revueltas who is so sincere in her performance that she finds the honesty in every line) and one has to take all of the non-professional acting with a grain of... well, you know.  It is delivering a message that some will agree with and some will fervently reject (and some others will be exposed to some new ideas that are decidedly not new, like at least 140 years old).

Yet the physical presence of these people and how the direction puts them all front and center, it is almost like the camera is able to see them clearly and there is a sort of humility just to being on film, like the scenes where the women strikers are going in the circle and being pulled out to be jailed one by one, that is so harrowing that no amount of dialog can wreck that power (or in other words, the documentary nature of the film makes the reality paramount).

And speaking of which, the surprise for me I was getting to: this is as much a film about what it means for women to have power as it does for men, if not more so in the second half, and it is there that Salt of the Earth feels special and has even dated with less of a "ear your veggies, Tom Joad" quality this might have in other hands. Chacon as Ramon by the way is an excellent performance, mostly because of how he reacts, what is in his eyes, how his wife taking on this role sort of threatens his own mascilinity (which the women all do because the men miners will be arrested, thank you stupid court injunction), there is a tension dramatically that adds extra emotional fire to an already steady blaze with the politics of strikers and the pig-headed bosses.

Of course without women there wouldn't be successful working-class movements, and what the makers of Salt of the Earth manage to see in the real-life events are what the deeper systemic issues are and will continue to be for the working class. 

Yes, there will be those in charge who stubbornly refuse to give in, or threaten to and just bring on Scabs, and how Workers fight and the strategies of not compromising are fascinating to watch here as it would be in like a Barbara Kopple film. Being a man and being a woman, and one side not only underestimating but sort of by upbringing even in the working class becoming over-protecrive (can a woman handle a fight or tear gas?), that is trickier and a much longer struggle that takes place in the home as much if not more than at worker meetings.

This is all to say you get a lot of meaty drama in just over 90 minutes here, and once you settle in to the unapologetically didactic approach you may find yourself totally absorbed into the struggles and overall world of these New Mexico workers. This may even serve as somewhat of a manual for potential future strikers - what to do and perhaps what to avoid or just take note of - though one can only hope by now women have joined work-forces like these in commensurate numbers. 

I'm glad this movie continues to exist and, while imperfect, is something anyone who is not Donald fucking trump and his acolytes should see once in their lives.