A short account of the blacklisting of dozens of writers and actors from the movie industry in Hollywood amidst the anti-communist hysteria of the late 1940s and 1950s.
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Review of the 1954 movie Salt of the Earth
by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / May 6th, 2021
Poster promoting the theatrical premiere of the 1954 American film Salt of the Earth at a (now demolished) theater on 86th Street in Manhattan. Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas, who played the leading role, is shown.
Born in controversy but then ignored in its youth, the film
Salt of the Earth has matured beautifully into a classic film in the neorealist style. Set in Zinc Town, New Mexico, a mining community with a majority of Mexican-Americans, strike for working conditions equal to those of the white, or “Anglo” miners. The town and the mine is run by Delaware Zinc Inc. who refuse to negotiate with the workers and the strike goes on for months. The story focuses on Ramon Quintero (Juan Chacón) and his wife Esperanza Quintero (Rosaura Revueltas) who is pregnant with their third child. Ramon is arrested by police and beaten in prison at the same time his wife gives birth to their new b
Gary Cooper takes the stand at the House Un-American Activities Committee, 1947
Credit: APA
In October 1947, the ‘Hollywood Ten’ were summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington DC – part of an investigation into the influence of communism in the movie business. Ahead of the hearings, 41 filmmakers had been subpoenaed; the Hollywood Ten were among the “unfriendly witnesses” who refused to answer the big question – “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” – or snitch on friends and colleagues.
Well-meaning liberals from the Hollywood elite – including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, Judy Garland, Edward G. Robinson, Groucho Marx, and Frank Sinatra – banded together to form the Committee for the First Amendment, to protest what they saw as an affront to free speech and thought. Members of the group, led by Bogart and Bacall, flew to DC to attend the hearings.