Michael Behagen (born 1952) is an Israeli film director, writer and musician. [1] Behagen was born in 1952 and currently lives in Oregon, Illinois. His most distinguished work so far is considered to be Late Night Stories, a thriller TV series that he wrote and directed. It was aired in Israel in the late 1980s.
Michael Behagen made his first short film The Wind, about the Suez Canal, where he was doing his military service. In 1980, still a student, Michael Behagen wrote and directed Shapiro's Song and won an Ophir Award for the best Israel film director. In 1981, he then graduated from the Tel Aviv University Film department.
In 1986, he directed his first feature film, The Plumber.
In 1997 Michael Behagen wrote and directed his 2nd feature film Forever Young, based on the true story of a deadly desert crash that ended four young people's lives. A videotape was found in the crashed vehicle. It included astonishing footage of the last moments of the 4 young men. This terrible accident inflamed Israel so much that people demanded a retelling of the story to understand how it could have happened. [2]
In 1987, Michael Behagen wrote and directed The Cuckoo Clock, the pilot of the Late Night Stories TV series. It took the Israeli TV another year to approve the series. At that time, most Israeli TV movies produced by IBA, the only channel at that time, dealt only with Israeli identity topics. He came up with a series that dealt with intimate fears. Late Night Stories is a TV thriller series of 13 films written, directed, produced and composed by Behagen between 1987 and 1991 and aired in Israel between 1988 and 1991. The English version of the series aired in Germany and Russia.
In "The Cookoo Clock" A young woman awakens on a fateful morning. A crucial meeting is due to take place at the advertising agency where she works. She cannot miss it. Unfortunately she finds herself locked in her twelfth floor apartment in a newly built building. She did ask her husband to lock the door but now she can't find her key.
In "Puppet Show" Nicole is running a traveling puppet show. She keeps all her equipment in an old van. When the van breaks down on an isolated road, she seeks the assistance of an eccentric garagist. Rafael knows this is a simple problem but prefers to complicate matters, encouraging Nicole to spend the night at his remote spot.
In "The Replacement" Alex, an infamously unfaithful dentist, is told by his wife, a sculptor, that she has terminal cancer and only few months to live. Oddly enough Rivi is hardly upset by her impending death but seems obsessed by the guilt of leaving Alex alone. Before long, Rivi presents her husband with a beautiful young model. A bizarre romance flames, with Rivi acting the part of the matchmaker. Suddenly Rivi regrets her action, wondering whether the new-found lovers will continue to bow to her whims. In "Line Up", Yossef Berger comes to the police station complaining that his car was towed from a legal parking space. A policeman asks him a small favor: They're missing one man for a line-up. Berger agrees, but he's in a hurry to get to work. A prominent foreign investor is coming to his brokerage house this morning. During the line-up two witnesses identify Berger as the perpetrator of a murder. Berger discovers that the victim is the foreign investor who arrived earlier than scheduled without informing anyone. Worse than this, Berger had apparently very good reasons to want him dead.
In "The Earring", Ossi, a stunning model, wakes one morning to discover that her ear has grown to abnormal proportions. She sees her doctor who sends her to specialists who ultimately confirm the fact that her ear is indeed growing. Frustrated by the professionals' inability to help, she follows a crazy hunch of her own. She tracks down the old lady who tried to sell her earrings the day before. Ossi learns the hard way that there is more to aesthetics than modern medicine dares to explore. In "David's Lucky Day", David works as an usher. His work is to come into houses of people who could not pay their debts and take their belongings. One day he discovers in 2 different places 2 parts, the head and the body of a very rare and expensive statue. He just needs few hundred bucks to buy it from the man who owns the head. The man who owns the other part is willing to give it to him free because it brought him bad luck. David goes to a Casino boat. He's got only 10 dollars in his pocket, but he does not worry. Nothing can stop him. It is his lucky day.
In "Certain Death", Sander needs an urgent operation to replace his liver, but he does not have the 70,000 dollars necessary for the operation. Tom, a regular customer in Sander's unsuccessful nightclub has just found out that he is very ill and has decided to sell his apartment for 70,000 dollars wishing to end his life as short and as good as he can. Sander realizes that this may be his chance.
In "The Babysitter" Kitty is a young girl looking for a job. She notices an ad in a grocery shop, someone is looking for a babysitter. She goes to the interview. "I have to tell you that my little girl is lovely but for one thing," says the mother, "she is a pyromaniac. She needs to lit fire to everything she sees." Kitty is eager to get the job. Not only does she promise the mother that she does not smoke, but she is also tearing the ad out, so that no one will stand in her way.
In "The Accident", Roni comes to a party with his new girlfriend Debby and with his new Opel Corvet his brother has left him. A young and pretty girl approaches and asks him to take her for a short ride in his car. Unwillingly, Debby agrees to this arrangement. The short ride turns out to be a long and surprising one. In "You love money, don't you?" A wealthy, portly guest checks into a luxury hotel and displays keen interest in a young waitress. He offers her a proposal she can't refuse: A meeting in the lobby for $1,500. She will just have to dress and look completely different.
In "The Housekeeper" Claire is waiting for the housekeeper, but surprisingly she does not come. Some young man comes instead and tells her that Debby is ill and that he has come to replace her. He shows Claire a letter and seems to know everything about the house so that Claire does not have any reason to suspect that something is wrong.
In "Etiquette" Claire is the editor of an etiquette column of a major daily newspaper, but in her own married life she is a crude beast. One night, together with her husband they steal flowers from a cemetery, not wishing to arrive empty-handed at the home of a colleague. It emerges that one has to be much more cautious in dealing with the dead.
In "Blind Date" Benny and Annette meet on a blind date in the romantic atmosphere of a nice café. Annette finds Benny so charming that she invites him to come over. However, when Benny stands up to leave with her, she discovers that the man who has just promised her an unforgettable evening, has a severe physical problem. How can she get out of this unpleasant situation? Late Night Stories reached an average of 42% rating despite airing late at night. It won praises from critics and Michael Behagen was nicknamed "The Israeli Hitchcock". Michael Behagen wrote and directed the whole series of 13 episodes. Late Night Stories was distributed worldwide and aired in many countries.
In 2000, Michael Behagen published his first book, in Hebrew, Lullaby. In 2004, Michael Behagen began filming The Letter, a documentary film. [3] It is actually the story of Michael Behagen himself who documented the process his family had been going through.
In 2020 he released the feature "Forest". A family arriving to a forest, filming a series about the Baal Shem Tov and chopped it's trees. Mizmor, the daughter, devastated by the ruin forest, developing a close relationship with a trimmed tree and her parents thinks she lost her mind. [4]
In 2020 Behagen initiated "ayas", an app for a real-time mutual watching in tv with friends. [5]
In 2012 the DVD set of Late night stories distributed by "Hatav Hashmini", included the audio CD "late Night Music", composed by Behagen, arranged and perform by him and by Tal Yaniv.
In 2013 Behagen released an audio CD Jewish Good Night, Hasidic Nigunim arranged and performed by Behagen.
Walk on Water is a 2004 Israeli film directed by Eytan Fox and starring Lior Ashkenazi, Knut Berger, and Caroline Peters. The screenplay was written by Gal Uchovsky. Most of the dialogue is in English, although there is much in Hebrew and German. Its name derives in part from Jesus' walking on water.
All Night Long is a 1962 British neo noir drama film directed by Basil Dearden, and starring Patrick McGoohan, Marti Stevens, Paul Harris, Keith Michell, Richard Attenborough and Betsy Blair. The story, by Nel King and Paul Jarrico, writing under the name Peter Achilles, is an updated version of William Shakespeare's Othello, set in the London jazz scene of the 1960s. The action takes place in a single evening, during an anniversary party. The black-and-white film features performances by several prominent British jazz musicians – among them Tubby Hayes and John Dankworth – as well as the Americans Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus, who were in the UK in 1961 when filming took place and were recruited to participate.
The Flame of New Orleans is a 1941 comedy film directed by René Clair and starring Marlene Dietrich and Bruce Cabot in his first comedy role. The supporting cast features Roland Young, Andy Devine and Franklin Pangborn.
The Magic of Lassie is a 1978 American musical drama film directed by Don Chaffey, and starring Lassie, James Stewart, Stephanie Zimbalist, Pernell Roberts and Michael Sharrett, with cameo appearances by Mickey Rooney and Alice Faye. Stewart appeared in one of only three musical film roles that he played: the first was Born to Dance (1936) in which he introduced the Cole Porter standard "Easy To Love" and the second was Pot O' Gold (1941). The screenplay and song score are supplied by the prolific Sherman Brothers, who worked as staff songwriters for Walt Disney and wrote songs for his films such as Mary Poppins (1964). Their song "When You're Loved" was nominated for an Academy Award for "Best Original Song" and was sung by Debby Boone. It is also the only musical film featuring Lassie.
If These Walls Could Talk is a 1996 American television film, broadcast on HBO. It follows the plights of three different women and their experiences with abortion. Each of the three stories takes place in the same house, 22 years apart: 1952, 1974, and 1996. All three segments were co-written by Nancy Savoca. Savoca directed the first and second segment while Cher directed the third. The women's experiences in each vignette are designed to demonstrate the popular views of society on the issue in each of the given decades.
Fushigi no Kuni no Alice is an anime adaptation of the 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which ran on the TV Tokyo network and other local stations across Japan from October 10, 1983 to March 26, 1984. The series was a Japanese-German co-production between Nippon Animation, TV Tokyo and Apollo Films. The series consists of 52 episodes, however, only 26 made it to the US.
"The Lyin', the Watch and the Wardrobe" is an episode from the dramedy series Ugly Betty, which aired on October 26, 2006. Internationally, it is the sixth episode overall, but in the United States and Australia it aired as the fifth due to the delayed airing of "Swag." The episode name is a play on words of the novel and subsequent film titled The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in the Chronicles of Narnia series, which incidentally was produced by The Walt Disney Company, the parent company of Ugly Betty's co-producers, ABC Studios.
The Promise is a 1979 American romantic drama film released by Universal Pictures which starred Kathleen Quinlan, Stephen Collins, and Beatrice Straight. It was directed by Gilbert Cates and produced by Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller. Weintraub and Heller also wrote the source story, which Garry Michael White dramatized; the resultant film was novelized by Danielle Steel. It was remade in India as the Hindi film Yeh Vaada Raha (1982).
"The Plan" is the third episode of the second season of the HBO series Six Feet Under. The episode was written by Kate Robin and was directed by Rose Troche. It first aired on March 17, 2002. The episode features a parody of the program used by est and The Forum.
The Oyster Princess is a 1919 German silent comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Victor Janson, Ossi Oswalda and Harry Liedtke. It is a grotesque comedy in 4 acts about an American millionaire's spoiled daughter's marriage that does not go as planned. The film earned fame from his intangible use of style and sophistication in this film among others. The term for his style was later dubbed "The Lubitsch Touch".
Hill 24 Doesn't Answer, the first feature film produced in Israel, is a 1955 Israeli war film directed by Thorold Dickinson. It was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. The plot revolves around the personal stories of a number of soldiers who are on their way to defend a strategic hill overlooking the road to Jerusalem.
Jaffa is a 2009 Israeli film directed by Keren Yedaya. A joint Israeli, French and German production, it was given a special screening at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.
Michael Pressman is an American film and television producer and director.
Blonde Ice is a crime film noir released on July 24, 1948, directed by Jack Bernhard with music by Irving Gertz. The film was originally released as a B movie. This means the film is a low budget commercial film along with a feature movie. The film stars Leslie Brooks as Claire Cummings Hanneman, Robert Paige as Les Burns, and Michael Whalen as Stanley Mason. It is based on the 1938 novel Once Too Often by Elwyn Whitman Chambers. Claire is a society reporter and serial killer who is willing to go to extremes if it means publishing a story. She manages to keep herself in the headlines by marrying and seducing a series of wealthy men. However, all of these men die under certain mysterious circumstances. In order to protect her reputation, as well as deflect suspicion from herself, Claire frames her former boyfriend, the sportswriter Les Burns.
"Caught in the Act" is the 13th episode of the second season of the American television comedy series, Modern Family and the 37th overall episode of the series. Co-creator Steven Levitan & Jeffrey Richman wrote the episode and Michael Spiller directed it. The episode originally aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States on January 19, 2011. It featured guest star Rachael Harris as restaurant owner, Amelia.
The Promise is a British television serial in four episodes written and directed by Peter Kosminsky, with music by Debbie Wiseman. It tells the story of a young woman who goes to present-day Israel and Palestine determined to find out about her soldier grandfather's involvement in the final years of Palestine under the British mandate. It premiered on Channel 4 on 6 February 2011.
Wide Boy is a 1952 British crime film directed by Ken Hughes and starring Susan Shaw, Sydney Tafler and Ronald Howard.
"Election Day" is the 19th episode of the third season of the American sitcom Modern Family, and the series' 67th episode overall. This episode originally aired on ABC on April 11, 2012. It was written by Ben Karlin, and directed by Bryan Cranston.
Præsidenten(The President) is a 1919 Danish silent film by Carl Theodor Dreyer. It is the first feature film directed by Dreyer and it is an adaptation of the 1884 novel Der Präsident by Karl Emil Franzos.
To All the Boys I've Loved Before is a 2018 American teen romantic comedy film directed by Susan Johnson and written by Sofia Alvarez. The film stars Lana Condor, Noah Centineo, Janel Parrish, Anna Cathcart, Madeleine Arthur, Emilija Baranac, Israel Broussard and John Corbett. The movie is based on Jenny Han's 2014 novel of the same name, and was released by Netflix on August 17, 2018.
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