Salt of the Earth (1954)

Banned! The film the US government didn't want you to see!

A revolutionary film that remains unique in American cinema for both the circumstances of its production and its extraordinary forward-looking content. Salt of the Earth was made independently by several victims of the Hollywood blacklist that resulted from the notorious hearings of the McCarthyite House Un-American Activities Commission in the late forties.

Salt of the Earth is based on a 1950 strike by zinc miners in Silver City, New Mexico. Against a backdrop of social injustice, a riveting family drama is played out by the characters of Ramon and Esperanza Quintero, a Mexican-American miner and his wife. In the course of the strike, Ramon and Esperanza find their roles reversed: an injunction against the male strikers moves the women to take over the picket line, leaving the men to domestic duties. The women evolve from men's subordinates into their allies and equals.