Salt of the Earth Special Edition [DVD]

This is the sole authorized edition of the only blacklisted film in America. An enhanced digital transfer ensures exceptional black-and-white quality. It includes a short documentary on "The Hollywood Ten," hundreds of production photographs, the history and hundreds of images of the Empire Zinc strike on which the film was based, Congressional testimony by blacklisted filmmakers, a history of the Hollywood blacklist, and the theatrical trailer. Included in the esteemed National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, Salt of the Earth represents a significant milestone in American cinema history. It was produced, written, and directed by filmmakers who were still blacklisted when the film was made in 1953, during the McCarthy era's anticommunist witch-hunts that affected Hollywood, as well as the entire country. The filmmakers faced unjust suspicion of promoting anti-American sentiments, yet the film was partially funded by the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, which strongly supported this impactful social-realist drama about a strike by Mexican American zinc miners in New Mexico. Featuring a prominent role for blacklisted actor Will Geer (later famous as Grandpa on TV's The Waltons), the story intensifies when the strikers are compelled to halt picketing and their wives take up the cause. Through focusing on one struggling couple to illustrate its themes of individual dignity and human rights, the film was released in only 13 theaters nationwide in 1954 and received mostly positive reviews. Salt of the Earth was surrounded by controversy before, during, and after its production, and was widely misunderstood as a call for social revolution. It remained largely unseen in America until the 1960s, but this boldly independent film has since been rightfully acknowledged for its artistic and social importance. --Jeff Shannon

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