Venue: Lamp Tavern, 157 Barford Street, Digbeth B5 6AH
Date: Thursday, 3 June, 8pm
Our monthly social with screenings, followed by discussion.
Salt of the Earth (Herbet J. Biberman, 1954, 94min)
For June we have a legendary film focusing on a long and difficult strike led by Mexican-American and Anglo miners against the Empire Zinc Company. The film shows how the miners, the company, and the police react during the strike. In neorealist style the producers and director used actual miners and their families as actors in the film. Salt of the Earth is one of the first pictures to advance the feminist social and political point of view.
The movie was suppressed in McCarthy-era United State, with several of the people involved blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their involvement in socialist politics. Still advertised as ‘the only Blacklisted American film’, it became a historical phenomenon and has a cult following due to how the United States establishment (politicians, journalists, studio executives, and other trade unions) dealt with the film.