Sacco And Vanzetti

If you could do a search on the terms "Italian immigrants," "anarchists" and "Red Scare" as they're used in this short but incisive documentary about the trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, and replace them with "illegal Mexicans," "terrorists" and "the War on Terror," you might think you're watching a story taken from this morning's headlines.

Sacco and Vanzetti were two Italian immigrants from very different backgrounds who nevertheless arrived in the U.S. in the first decade of the 20th century and settled in and around Boston, Mass., finding work as industrial laborers. Vanzetti in particular had high hopes for his life in this "country of gold,"...