Save your money for something good and enjoyable

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Having been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their alleged involvement in "communist plots", Michael Wilson, Herbert Biberman and Paul Jarrico set out to "commit a crime to fit the punishment". Their subsequent crime? "Salt of the Earth", a 1954 film which documents a strike by Mexican-American zinc miners in New Mexico against their Anglo-American management. The film was banned and kept out of American theatres until 1965, as it was deemed "seditious" and "subversive". In many ways "Salt of the Earth" anticipates the works of Ken Loach, particularly "Bread and Roses".Unusually gritty for an American independent production during this period, "Salt and Earth" delves headlong into the lives of the miners, documenting their struggles for labour rights, safety, sanitation and economic justice. Like Loach's films during the 60s and 70s, our rough-faced band of workers take their complaints to Union heads and bosses, but their protests are quelled at every turn. More interesting, though, is the way the film documents the fights for equality WITHIN the bands of protesters: the Mexican-American womenfolk must break down the shackles of Hispanic machismo, must break through a kind of low level ethno-specific patriarchy, achieving marital and communal equality within their own community and with their own spouses, even as they struggle against their white bosses. What you eventually end up with is one of the first calculated works of feminism on screen, and a fairly sophisticated leftist tract (certainly more nuanced than your typical liberal "message movie" churned out by Stanley Kramer), even if it is dated and naive in some minor respects.The film was funded by Unions and blacklisted artists, and uses many neorealist touches (which can be traced to the French Poetic Realists of the 30s and the Italian Neorealists of the 40s), with real miners and Mexicans dotting the cast, and the real President of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers playing an on-screen union president. The film is much less crowd pleasing and sentimental than John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath" - a great film in its own right, despite Darryl Zanuck's footprints, and despite Ford's Irish conservatism being at odds with his film's message – and more strongly resembles fare like "Vidas Secas" ("Barren Lives") and "Los Olvidados" ("The Forgotten Ones"), other Western post-war leftist (ie socialist) tracts. Bizarrely, though Steinbeck's 1939 novel, "The Grapes of Wrath", was slandered for being "socialist" and "communist", Ford's film, released a year later, was wildly embraced. It was only in the post War, communist witch-hunt years that such political leanings began to be viewed as being symptomatic of deviancy.8.5/10 – Worth one viewing. See Loach's "Bread and Roses" and John Sayles' "Matewan".

As a U.S.-born Latina whose family has lived in the northern New Mexico/southern Colorado region since the early 1700s, I'm ashamed to say I had never heard of this film. I was trolling through Netflix for something to watch one night when this popped up in my "suggested films" list. Boy, am I ever glad I watched it.My grandfather was a coal miner in southern Colorado, and the coal-mining industry (and its effects on Hispanos of the Southwest) has been an interest of mine all of my life. Quite simply, this film brought history to life for me. The actors, location, themes, language, and other details were so authentic, that I felt I was watching a documentary at times. I felt a spiritual connection to my grandparents, who lived and worked in coal mining camps in the early part of the 20th century. I grew up hearing their stories, and the devastation of the Colorado Coalfield Wars and the Ludlow Massacre.This is, quite simply, a stunning cinematic achievement, especially given that it was written and filmed in 1954. Sadly, many of the prejudices and themes in the film resonate today. Little has changed for many of the hardworking Hispanos who have called the Southwest home for centuries.

Seeing how the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book has been really reliable with film choices, this was another one I was looking forward to trying. Based on the true events, this is about the strike against the Empire Zinc Company mine in New Mexico in 1953, dealing with prejudice against the Mexican-American workers and safety issues. Begun by Ramon Quintero (Juan Chacón, it started first with miners themselves demanding the changes, but with them being treated like second class, the wives get involved too. Roman's wife Esperanza (Rosaura Revueltas, also narrating) who, three months pregnant, was part of the large amount of women, the miners wives, playing a vital part in the strike, against their husbands wishes. In the end, they may not have won the strike, and the wives convince them to drop it, but they realise that prejudice and poor treatment aren't always imposed by outside forces. Also starring Will Geer as Sheriff, David Wolfe as Barton, Mervin Williams as Hartwell, David Sarvis as Alexander, Henrietta Williams as Teresa Vidal and William Rockwell as Kimbrough. This film I read made a big impact in the political and journalistic establishments, and developed a cult following, I can see why that would be, it is a good drama. Very good!

This by no means is a great or greatly made movie but it tells a good story. It's a movie about standing up for your rights and against discrimination as well as female emancipation. All in all more than enough elements for the American government to ban this movie and blacklist basically every person involved with it, if they weren't blacklisted already that is. Pretty ridicules of course in todays light but that's how things were during the McCartney-era. Most notable blacklisted person involved with this movie was writer Michael Wilson, who would later write the classics "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Lawrence of Arabia" but never in his life-time received the acknowledgment or acclaim for it because he simply couldn't been given the writing credits for its, due to the fact he got blacklisted in the '50's. Prior to that he also wrote the screenplay for other classics "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Place in the Sun".It is still a relevant movie because of the issues it handles. And this is also one of my complaints with this movie. At the end you don't really feel that the characters and this movie actually achieved anything the change the whole situation. As long as money is important companies like this will use cheap labor forces, with minimum wage and without overly expensive safety measures. This is not something typical American. Of course not everything is still the same now days but some of the problems of the old days got replaced by a whole new similar bunch of problems.The movie got made very cheaply and in secret, due to the involvement of blacklisted persons. Because of this the movie does not exactly use the best director, the best cinematographer, the best editor or the best actors. As a matter of fact the movie its cast largely consists out of non-actors and it gets presented and mentioned as if that's something to be proud. I'm sorry but more than halve of these persons in this movie just really can't act. But granted that this movie is not necessarily a movie, so not everything I just mentioned really matters for the end result. It can be seen as the telling of a true story, in an almost documentary like style. It got shot at the spot, with only the available things and persons at hand. It got shot at a real Mexican miners community, with real miners and their families.Really not the greatest looking or made movie but it tells a good story.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/