JUAN CHAON was an amateur actor in "Salt of the Earth."
BOB LEBZELTER / VIDEO VIPER /
Published July 02, 2009 06:13 pm - WEEKENDER Video Viper for July 2, 2009: The 1954 film ’Salt of the Earth’ was given the trailer: Banned! The film the U.S. government didn't want you to see!
'Salt of Earth' banned, but you can see it ROBERT LEBZELTER / VIDEO VIPER
Star Beacon
The 1954 film "Salt of the Earth" was given the trailer: Banned! The film the U.S. government didn't want you to see!
Now this wasn't because of heavy sex or violence. It's because most of the people involved in it were labeled Communists for their pro-labor stance.
The film has almost a documentary style that may put you off at first. It is a sort of grainy black and white.
What's more, many of the actors are amateurs. The only person you may recognize is Will Greer of "Waltons" fame. He plays the sheriff of a New Mexican mining town where the Hispanic workers strike to gain parity with Caucasians.
The film may be more than a half-century old, but its themes of racial equality and equality of the sexes remains contemporary.
The movie is about the actual Empire Zinc Mine strike. Hispanic workers were concerned about cuts (sound familiar) in workers that could result in even unsafe conditions. Hispanic workers were paid less and weren't given proper safety considerations. Miners worked alone and there weren't proper lookouts to warn people about possible cave-ins.
To the men, there was a less-important consideration as well, the lack of proper sanitation, that is, hot water.
The women, subservient to the men, spent much of their days chopping wood to make a fire to heat water for washing, bathing and cooking.
But the men didn't want to add it to the negotiations because it wasn't as important as safety.
But when an accident happens, the men go on a long, struggling strike and things change.
First off, the site of all of those miners on the picket line kept scabs away. But still, the company didn't negotiate.
It had the sheriff's department and the judicial system in its pocket.
Rosaura Revueltas plays Esperanza Quintero, the wife of a miner. She stays in the background but when the company gets an injunction banning picketing by the miners, the women realize they can go on the picket line instead. She suddenly finds herself a leader in the cause.
Revueltas, by the way, was branded a Communist and deported. She was a popular actress in Mexico. This proved to be her only American film.
Her husband was played by Juan Chacon, an amateur actor who was part of the strike
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