Left-wing Agit-Prop rabble-rouser, this fact-inspired story of a workers’ strike at a Zinc Mine in New Mexico was made with BlackListed Hollywood talent (director, producer, composer, writer*), then BlackListed from Stateside distribution. It naturally holds interest as socio-political document, but is also interesting simply as film. Shunned as Commie propaganda (note our USSR film poster where it presumably did get distribution), the film is loaded with Pro-Union/Socialist ideas and does a thorough job painting Capitalism with a thick black brush, but its didactic elements are hardly revolutionary. Striking for mine safety, wages and improved living conditions, the mixed laborers find themselves nearly as divided in their own ranks without trust between immigrants, Anglos & Mexicans here on work permits. And the plot also moves into sexual politics when the wives get in on the act. First to keep husbands out of jail, then finding their own voices (and enjoying the sensation), an evolution that reveals uncomfortable macho overreactions from husbands who feel emasculated. Technically, the film has a rough & effective Neo-Realism look (right down to the mix of pro & amateur actors). A shame that the soundtrack hasn’t come up very well, but the film still earns its rabble-rousing response. And, proving that you can take the talent out of Hollywood, but can’t take Hollywood out of the talent, it all wraps with a celebratory feel-good Hollywood ending. (The movie slipped into Public Domain decades ago, but The Film Detective DVD sources an okay print.)
DOUBLE-BILL: For a real life follow-up, try Barbara Kopple's classic docu HARLAN COUNTY, U.S.A./’76.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Writer Michael Wilson, the best known name involved, did uncredited work (now acknowledged) on films by David Lean, William Wyler & Otto Preminger.
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