Communist Controversy over Film Salt of the Earth

Communist Controversy over Film Salt of the Earth

Salt of the Earth was released in 1954, during the anticommunist McCarthy era by a collection of blacklisted individuals, including screenwriter Michael Wilson, producer Paul Jarrico, and Hollywood 10 director Herbert J. Biberman. Salt is based on the Empire Zinc strike of Local 890 in Bayard County, New Mexico that took place from 1950-1952. In many ways, Salt of the Earth resembles the archetypal American dream by presenting the triumph of ordinary, working class Americans over the forces of discrimination, inequality, and injustice. Salt enjoyed widespread acclaim in Europe, and won prestigious awards in Czechoslovakia and France. Yet in the United States, its production encountered violent opposition from agencies such as the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Labor and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. What particular element of Salt made it seem so threatening and subversive?

According to film critic Pauline Kael Salt was nothing more than "shrewd propaganda for the urgent business of the USSR." (Kael, 331-332) She unhesitatingly asserts that Salt is "as clear a piece of communist propaganda as we have had in many years" (Kael 331-332). In short, Kael argues that Salt is fundamentally subversive, threatening and un-American. Yet what does it mean to be subversive in the context of the McCarthy era? The Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun subversive as wishing to "overthrow a regime" (OED). Kael’s argument seems to be congruous to this definition. Does Salt of the Earth intend to overthrow the existing political order and replace it with a communist form of government?

Several scholars have responded to Kael’s communist reading of Salt. Lorence...

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...d English Dictionary. Accessed 2. June.2003

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