FLICKS FILM AND VIDEO NOTES : Political Fare : Thousand Oaks Library’s annual film festival kicks off with a 1953 production, ‘Salt of the Earth.’

You may not know the film “Salt of the Earth,” but the organizers of the Thousand Oaks Library’s annual film festival could hardly have chosen a more appropriate show to open their three-week program on Saturday.

The festival’s theme is Political Issues in Films, and “Salt of the Earth,” completed in 1953, was political from before its start until after its finish.

In semi-documentary style, the movie examines an actual miners’ strike in New Mexico and its effects on one striker’s family. In the process, the movie probes issues of equality in the workplace (in this case between Latino and white miners) and equality between the sexes.

The film was made at the height of the Hollywood communist scare. The three key men behind it were producer Paul Jarrico, director Herbert Biberman and writer Michael Wilson--all victims of blacklisting. The few actors in the movie who were professional had also been blacklisted, and the rest of the cast was filled out with non-professionals, many of whom had been involved in the actual strike. The obstacles were many.

“They were harassed during the making of the film. The set was buzzed by airplanes. Goons were sent around to beat people up,” said Wilson’s widow, Zelma, an architect in Ojai. “The strike they were writing about had a great deal of violence and there was a great deal of violence during the making of the film.”

About one-third of the way through the filmimg process, Wilson said, lead actress Rosaura Revueltas, a professional, was deported. Most of the movie was made without her, Wilson said, and “later they went down to Mexico and took shots of her to complete the story line.”

After filming was completed, the crew was barred from technical facilities.

“They had to use black market technicians,” Wilson said. “The film was never processed properly in a commercial way.” And it was never distributed commercially, instead playing in a series of small theaters, schools and other low-profile venues.

“It became an international cult classic,” Wilson said. “It dealt with issues far before their time. . . . The film was released in 1953 and the great movement of women’s liberation was not until the 1960s.”

Wilson said her husband was pleased with the film, but frustrated by the difficulty in getting it to the public.

“Of course, it was so painful to those involved,” she said. “But he was accustomed to that.”

In 1985, Michael Wilson was awarded a posthumous Academy Award for writing “Bridge On the River Kwai.” Initially, he was not acknowledged as the writer of the screenplay. He also wrote “A Place in the Sun,” “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Friendly Persuasion.”

“Salt of the Earth” will begin at 7 p.m. Zelma Wilson and Stephen Callis, a documentary producer and a photography instructor at Moorpark College, will lead a discussion afterward. Admission is $2. The film festival will continue with one film each of the next two Saturdays. The library is at 1401 E. Janss Road. For more information, call 495-1392.

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