Where Even Mavericks Have a Home

Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Faced with an uncertain future, the three decided, in the words of Jarrico, to "commit a crime to fit the punishment." They packed their bags for New Mexico to collaborate on Salt of the Earth, a rabble-rousing depiction of a bitter and prolonged strike at a zinc mine near Silver City. Racism provoked the ugly conflict. Among other grievances, the participating Mexican-American miners walked out to protest substandard wages markedly lower than those paid to Anglos at surrounding mines.

Biberman, Jarrico and Wilson jumped right into the fray, casting Juan Chacon, president of the local union, as their firebrand leading man. Salt of the Earth was, in fact, a powder keg ready to explode. Besides its radical pro-labor sympathies and muckraking exposure of bigotry, the film embraced feminist notions years before that became fashionable. When a judge forbade the striking miners from manning picket lines, their wives defiantly took up the gauntlet and held the scab workers at bay.

Real and threatened violence dogged the production. A union hall went up in smoke, the target of arson. The U.S. government deported Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas, cast opposite Chacon in the female lead as Esperanza (or "Hope"). No less of an adversary than Howard Hughes leaned on film labs and recording studios to withhold vital technical support.

Against these great odds, the filmmakers struggled to complete Salt of the Earth and finally delivered their heretical volley early in 1954. As expected, the feature fizzled, surfacing only briefly in a handful of major cities. But prestigious awards garnered in Europe enabled Salt of the Earth to survive its controversial debut. Eventually, the Library of Congress placed the work on the National Film Registry reserved for movies deemed to have enduring "cultural, historical or aesthetic significance."

What became of the three Hollywood pariahs who came to New Mexico with a salty resolve to lick their wounds? None ever cleanly resurrected their careers, but Wilson, the screenwriter, acquitted himself quite admirably working on an uncredited basis to pen the Oscar-winning epics Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia.