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White Lies: The Boatlift

Embedded

NPR

News, Society & Culture, News Commentary, Documentary

4.811.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The story of the men on the roof didn't start with that prison takeover in 1991. It didn't start when they were detained in federal prisons. And it didn't start when the government made a secret list of their names in 1984. Instead, it started in the spring of 1980, with one of the largest refugee crises in American history: the Mariel Boatlift. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Previously on White Lives.

0:05.0

This man just read our names, all of our names.

0:08.0

And then he said,

0:09.0

there was a boat waiting for you, get everybody.

0:11.0

We were met by Cuban gunboats, black, foul-looking, sinister-looking things.

0:16.0

Cuban government calls them common delinquents, anti-social, vagrants, and bombs,

0:21.0

but said they were free to leave Cuba.

0:23.0

But we'll continue to provide an open heart and open arms to refugees seeking freedom.

0:28.0

They get out of their boats and they walk through the water, and they're yours.

0:33.0

What do you do with them?

0:40.0

The way Apichino tells it, it's 1978, and he's walking down sunset boulevard in Los Angeles.

0:45.0

And he sees that this revival theater is showing a new print of a big gangster movie from 1932.

0:51.0

He's always wanted to see the film, it's based loosely on the life of Al Capone.

0:55.0

The title character is Tony Camonti, an Italian immigrant rising through the ranks

1:00.0

of Chicago's criminal underworld during prohibition.

1:03.0

Tommy Gunn's, shootouts, the anti-hero always narrowly escaping the cops in an increasingly violent world.

1:10.0

Early in the film, a newspaperman sets the scene.

1:13.0

You know what's happening? This town is up for the grabs.

1:17.0

Get me? They'll be shooting each other like rabbits for the control of the booze business.

1:22.0

If you get it, it'll be just like, whoa!

1:25.0

Apichino loves the film. He calls his former agent and producer and says he wants to do a remake.

1:30.0

First they try a straight remake setting the film back in prohibition era Chicago, but the script isn't working.

...

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