Heaven Help Us (1985) on Netflix
After their parents die, Michael Dunn and his sister Boo leave Boston for their grandparents' home in Brooklyn. At St. Basil's he befriends Caesar and Danni, who runs the soda fountain.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.9/105,577 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes33%
Trailer
Plot summary
After their parents die, Michael Dunn and his sister Boo move from Boston into their grandparents' home in Brooklyn. Grandma Martha is determined that he fulfill his parents' dream of becoming a priest, so he attends St. Basil's, where the monks rule the boys' school with paddles and discipline. He befriends Caesar, a bookish classmate who helps him catch up on missed work; because of their association, Rooney, a foul-mouthed troublemaker, pranks him outside the soda fountain across the street. Danni runs the fountain and looks after her father, and when the Brothers raid the shop to catch St. Basil's students misbehaving, Michael stays to help her clean up.
Cast
- George Andersas Brother Augustus
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Heaven Help Us (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The script began life in 1978 as writer Charles Purpura's NYU masters thesis about his own Catholic boys' school years; while trying to sell it he lost his day job, was denied unemployment benefits because his screenwriting was seen as potentially lucrative, and ended up filing for bankruptcy and traveling to India.
- Director Michael Dinner secured the film's financing during a single plane ride: he met HBO Films chief Maurice Singer on a flight to the Cannes Film Festival, and by the time the plane landed in Europe Singer had agreed to finance the movie, then titled Catholic Boys.
- Mary Stuart Masterson was cast as Danni after Dinner watched a tape of her acting work from the Sundance Institute; she joined the production after filming had already begun and had to rehearse her scenes with Dinner and Andrew McCarthy on weekends.
