Heaven Help Us [Catholic Boys] **** (1985, Donald Sutherland, Andrew McCarthy, John Heard, Kevin Dillon) – Classic Movie Review 8388

Director Michael Dinner’s 1985 Heaven Help Us [Catholic Boys] is a fresh and funny film about Catholic high school life at St Basil’s Catholic Boys’ Prep School in Brooklyn in 1965 that manages to put a new gloss on the old coming-of-age theme. It is the debut cinema movie of actors Kevin Dillon, Patrick Dempsey and Stephen Geoffreys.

Bright performances from the young Eighties stars, Kevin Dillon as cocky young Rooney and Andrew McCarthy as sensitive 16-year-old Michael Dunn, get attractive stalwart support from the old hands, Donald Sutherland in curls and cassock as oddball headmaster Brother Thadeus, John Heard as nice new brother Brother Timothy, and Wallace Shawn as lust-obsessed Father Abruzzi.

Also in the noteworthy cast are Mary Stuart Masterson as Danni the troubled girl Michael pursues, Kate Reid as Grandma, Philip Bosco as Brother Paul, Christopher Durang as Priest, Patrick Dempsey as quiet Corbet, Malcolm Danare as high-voiced fat boy Caesar, Stephen Geoffreys as masturbation addict Williams, Jennifer Dundas as Dunn’s death-obsessed little sister Boo, Jay Patterson as the sadistic Brother Constance, Yeardley Smith as Cathleen, George Anders as Brother Augustus, Donald Breitman as Brother Gregory, Douglas Seale as Brother Domenic, William Eustace as Brother William, and Dana Barron as Janine.

Plus there are attractive first film débuts by Charles Purpura, who wrote the truthfully observed, raunchy script and director Dinner.

It is beautifully, lovingly photographed by Czech cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, and evocatively scored by James Horner with a soundtrack mostly of Motown and Atlantic soul hits.

Heaven Help Us [Catholic Boys] is directed by Michael Dinner, runs 104 minutes, is made by HBO and Silver Screen Partners, is released by Tri-Star, is written by Charles Purpura, is shot by Miroslav Ondricek, is produced by Dan Wigutow and Mark Carliner, is scored by James Horner and is designed by Michael Molly.

The script was written as a Masters Thesis for New York University and optioned by producer Mark Carliner who had connections at NYU.

Dinner made Off Beat, Hot to Trot and The Crew but headed off to TV, where he won a Primetime Emmy for an episode of The Wonder Years (1988). Purpura wrote only one other screenplay, Satisfaction (1988), before his death on 20 March 2005, aged 59.

Many scenes were shot at Saint Michaels Grammar School, High School and Church in Brooklyn.

RIP John Heard, who died of a heart attack on July 21, 2017, in Palo Alto, California, aged 71.

RIP James Horner, who died in a plane crash on June 22, 2015 while soloing in his two-seater trainer in low-altitude aerobatic manoeuvres in Quatal Canyon, California.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8388

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