Heaven Help Us

Heaven Help Us (also known as Catholic Boys) is a 1985 American comedy-drama film directed by Michael Dinner. It stars Andrew McCarthy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kevin Dillon, Malcolm Danare, Patrick Dempsey, and Stephen Geoffreys as a group of 1960s Brooklyn teenagers, with Jay Patterson, Wallace Shawn, John Heard and Donald Sutherland as the teachers and administrators at the private Catholic school the boys attend. Plot In 1965, Boston teenager Michael Dunn and his young sister Boo have been sent to Brooklyn to live with their Irish-Catholic grandparents following the deaths of their parents. Michael Dunn is enrolled at St. Basil's, a strict all-boys Catholic school. His grandmother is determined to see him fulfill his parents' dream of him joining the priesthood. Dunn befriends Caesar, an overweight, bespectacled student who enjoys reading and excels academically. Caesar helps Dunn catch up with the rest of the class, but because of their association, foul-mouthed bully and school troublemaker Ed Rooney pranks Dunn outside of the soda fountain across the street from school. After Rooney pulls a prank on Caesar, teacher Brother Constance attempts to get Dunn to identify the prankster by striking Dunn's open palms with a paddle. Fed up with Dunn's refusal to rat out the perpetrator, Constance shoves him to the floor. Dunn lunges towards Rooney and the pair are separated. Dunn and Rooney are sent to the office of the headmaster, Brother Thadeus. Rooney, impressed by Dunn's refusal to snitch, attempts to patch things up between them, but Dunn wants nothing to do with him. After school, Rooney tells Dunn that if they do not become friends, he will have to continue in his harassment in order to save face. Reluctantly, Dunn befriends Rooney and his friends, sex obsessed Williams and naive Corbett. Dunn also befriends Danni, a teenaged girl who runs the soda fountain across from the school and cares for her mentally infirm father. Danni's fountain shop is raided numerous times by the Brothers, who wish to catch St. Basil's students misbehaving. The raids leave the shop in shambles. After one raid, Dunn helps Danni clean things up, sparking a romance.