Ok, I know this is a decent comedy and really enjoy its comedic moments, but I am wondering did they actually rob poor Mr. Bogardus in the name of God? I mean isn't his building built for his bussiness? So he gave up his bssiness? I missed the first half of the movie, so probably I didn't really get what the conflict between he and St. Mary is.
Robbery? The whole thing is that Bogardus had been hoping to acquire and demolish the school building for a parking lot for his new Bogardus Building. And instead, Bogardus was later inspired by the nuns' hints and his near-death experience to donate the new building as a new school.
share**** Spoilers ****
demyjacques, I really delight in your chosen name here - what a great director!
We are told early in the movie that Bogardus owns many properties in the city.
We are also told that the office building is rising on property that used to belong to St. Mary's (it was the grassy schoolyard) before they had to sell the property to Bogardus to pay for needed repairs (e.g., fire escapes, new boilers, etc.) or their school would have been condemned.
Later, when Bogardus says he wants to purchase the school to raze it to create a parking lot for his employees, he says that if the parish doesn't sell for his suggested price, it will be condemned by the City anyway - and that he knows this because he's the head of the committee that would determine the condemnation! (This is so outrageous that I'm sure it wouldn't be allowed to happen in real life - but this is after all, a movie).
So, early in the film, we are given a rather sympathetic view of the school seeking to survive, and of its reason to seek Bogardus' new building: their own school will be destroyed - either by:
i) voluntary sale to Bogardus (sending the children to another parish school - which Father O'Malley has been asked by the bishop to determine) or
ii) condemnation by the city -- or
iii) (the nuns wildly pray and hope) because they move the school into another, superior building for which they have no means to pay.
Remember, the nuns don't force Bogardus to sell - in the end, his decision is largely due to his own consciousness of mortality (his bad heart, his fatigue, his age dealing with all the headaches of constructoin, his awareness of his eventual return to dust) and his desire to do charity while he still lives.
Don't forget Bogardus' aside to his doctor: "And a donation to the Church is tax deductible". The old fellow's no fool.
"It's as red as The Daily Worker and just as sore."