Editing Salt of the Earth (1954 film) (section)

==Production==
[[Image:salt105.JPG|thumb|left|220px|Miners and their kids are jailed by the law]]
Herbert Biberman was one of the ten Hollywood screenwriters and directors who refused in 1947 to answer questions from the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities]] about their affiliations with the [[Communist Party USA]]. The "[[Hollywood Ten]]" were cited for [[contempt of Congress]] and jailed. Biberman was imprisoned in the [[Federal Correctional Institution, Texarkana|Federal Correctional Institution]] at [[Texarkana]] for six months. After his release, and unable to obtain work in Hollywood, he met with fellow blacklistees about establishing their own production company and collaborating to make movies.<ref>{{cite book |title=Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance with the Left |last1=Radosh |first1=Ronald |author-link=Ronald Radosh |last2=Radosh |first2=Allis |year=2005 |publisher=Encounter Books |location=San Francisco |isbn=1-893554-96-1 |pages=211–212}}</ref> In 1951, they formed the Independent Productions Corporation (IPC).<ref name=AFI_catalog/> ''Salt of the Earth'' was the sole production that IPC was able to finish.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Hollywood Ten |date=20 May 1999 |url=http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/blacklist.html |archive-date=22 April 2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000422214843/http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/blacklist.html |publisher=University of California, Berkeley}}</ref> Other blacklistees who participated in the movie included [[Paul Jarrico]], [[Will Geer]], and [[Michael Wilson (writer)|Michael Wilson]].<ref name=Daily_Beast_article/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Henkel |first1=Scott |last2=Fonseca |first2=Vanessa |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/chiricu.1.1.03 |title=Fearless Speech and the Discourse of Civility in ''Salt of the Earth'' |journal=Chiricú |volume=1 |number=1 |year=2016 |pages=19–38|doi=10.2979/chiricu.1.1.03 |jstor=10.2979/chiricu.1.1.03 }}</ref>

Before production commenced in [[Silver City, New Mexico]], the mainstream press already labeled the film dangerous and subversive because it was known to be the creation of blacklisted professionals, and because the [[Western Federation of Miners|International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers]] (a.k.a. "Mine Mill") was helping to fund it. The Mine Mill union had been expelled from the [[Congress of Industrial Organizations|CIO]] in 1950 for its unwillingness to purge suspected [[Communist]]s from its leadership.<ref name=LATimes_review/> ''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]'' warned readers that "H'wood Reds are shooting a feature length anti-American racial issue propaganda movie." ''[[Newsweek]]'' headlined its attack on the film, "Reds in the Desert".<ref name=Tom_Miller_article>{{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Tom |title=Class Reunion: 'Salt of the Earth' Revisited |journal=[[Cinéaste (magazine)|Cinéaste]] |volume=13 |number=3 |year=1984 |pages=30–36 |jstor=41686417 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41686417}}</ref>

As Tom Miller notes in a ''[[Cinéaste (magazine)|Cinéaste]]'' article, the early negative publicity made it difficult to assemble a film crew: "The [[International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees]]—IATSE, an [[American Federation of Labor|AFL]] affiliate—refused to allow its members to work on ''Salt of the Earth'' because of the movie's politics. That the Hollywood unions wouldn't let their members work on such a pro-union film was bitter irony."<ref name=Tom_Miller_article/> As a consequence, IPC had to scramble to put together a makeshift crew.

[[Image:Sotejuanpic.jpg|left|thumb|105px|Juan Chacón as Ramón Quintero]]
Only five professional actors were cast. The rest were residents of [[Grant County, New Mexico]], or members of Mine Mill, Local 890, many of whom took part in the strike that inspired the movie. Juan Chacón was a real-life union local president. In the film he plays the [[protagonist]] who has trouble dealing with women as equals.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.vafilm.com/1995/thursday.html |publisher=University of Virginia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061016140845/http://www.vafilm.com/1995/thursday.html |archive-date=16 October 2006 |title=A Nation of Immigrants |date=26 October 1995}}</ref> The director was reluctant to cast him at first, thinking he was too "gentle", but both Revueltas and the director's sister-in-law, Sonja Dahl Biberman (wife of Biberman's brother [[Edward Biberman|Edward]]), urged him to cast Chacón as Ramón.<ref>{{cite web |last=Boisson |first=Steve |url=http://www.historynet.com/salt-of-the-earth-the-movie-hollywood-could-not-stop.htm |title=''Salt of the Earth'': The Movie Hollywood Could Not Stop |website=American History |date=February 2002 |via=HistoryNet.com |access-date=18 August 2013 |archive-date=2 June 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080602230418/http://www.historynet.com/salt-of-the-earth-the-movie-hollywood-could-not-stop.htm}}</ref>

According to one journalist's account, "During the course of production in New Mexico in 1953, the trade press denounced it as a subversive plot, [[anti-Communist]] vigilantes fired rifle shots at the set, the film's leading lady [[Rosaura Revueltas]] was deported to Mexico, and from time to time a small airplane buzzed noisily overhead ... The film, edited in secret, was stored for safekeeping in an anonymous wooden shack in Los Angeles."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hockstader |first=Lee |url=http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/apr_03/apr_03_37.html |journal=Socialist Viewpoint |title=Blacklisted Film Restored and Rehabilitated |date=April 2003 |volume=3 |number=4}}</ref> After [[principal photography]] ended, [[Film laboratory|laboratories]] wouldn't process the film, which delayed [[Post-production|postproduction]] work for months.<ref name=Lorence_book_review>{{cite web |last=Wake |first=Bob |title=Book review of James J. Lorence's ''The Suppression of Salt of the Earth.'' |year=2001 |website=culturevulture.net |url=http://culturevulture.net/Books/Suppression.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121118072013/http://culturevulture.net/Books/Suppression.htm |archive-date=2012-11-18}}</ref> As producer Paul Jarrico recalled in a 1983 interview, "I had to trot around the country with cans of film under my arms, putting the film through different labs under phony names. We had a lot of trouble, but we did complete the film, despite the obstacles."<ref name=Jarrico_interview>{{cite book |title=Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist |last1=McGilligan |first1=Patrick |last2=Buhle |first2=Paul |year=1997 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |chapter=Paul Jarrico |page=342 |isbn=0-312-17046-7}}</ref>