Intensive Therapy

It sounds like a Woody Allen joke or maybe one of his mock literary essays. But there it is--for real--in the 1997 McFarland Performing Arts catalog of books: “Woody Allen’s Angst: Philosophical Commentaries on His Serious Films,” by Sander H. Lee, a professor of philosophy at Keene State College in New Hampshire.

The book is described as having 414 pages and a library binding--which means it’s built for the ages, barring nuclear war--as well as photographs, references, a filmography, bibliography, appendix and index; it sells for the bargain price of $45. The professor addresses “gender issues,” “Allen’s love-hate relationship with God,” “narcissism and moral relativism” and “the use of the so-called existential dilemma” in Allen’s cinematic oeuvre.

Before rushing off to the bookstore, however, you might want to check in at the Port Theatre (2905 E. Coast Highway, Corona del Mar). For the price of Lee’s cogitations, you can attend what Ludwig Wittgenstein, Woody’s favorite 20th century philosopher, might well have termed “the thing in itself:” a weeklong Woody Allen Film Festival.

The Port is offering four double bills: “Play It Again, Sam” (1972) and “Bananas” (1971) on Friday and Saturday; “Sleeper” (1973) and “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)” (1972) on Sunday; “Annie Hall” (1977) and “Manhattan” (1979) on Monday and Tuesday; and “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986) and “Broadway Danny Rose” (1984) on Wednesday and Dec. 18. $4.50 (seniors) and $7. (714) 673-6260.

These are perhaps not the “serious” films that professor Lee analyzes, but they clearly deal with many similar, if not the same, topics.

Woody faces a bank robber’s very real dilemma in “Take the Money and Run” when the bank tellers cannot read his (actually, Virgil Starkwell’s) inept stickup note. Though illegible handwriting and poor spelling--as in “Give me the money! I’ve got a gub!”--is a penmanship and orthographic dilemma, rather than an existential one, the results are equally deadly.

If nothing else, the festival lets ardent Woody Allen fans indulge in a pastime favored by some of the most scholarly cineastes: dialogue-spotting.

In what movie does Woody’s obsession with death conflict with his love life? The common answer, of course, is all of them, including his latest, “Deconstructing Harry,” which opens Friday at the Edwards South Coast Village 3 (1561 Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana). $6.75. (714) 540-0594.

The scholarly cineaste’s answer is: “Play It Again, Sam” and would include a dialogue-spotting citation about the suicidal girl who Woody’s alter ego, film critic Allan Felix, tries to pick up in an art museum. (“What are you doing Saturday?” “Committing suicide.” “How about Friday?”)

Another pastime would be naming the original working title for a Woody Allen picture.

What is the original title of “Annie Hall,” probably Woody’s most widely acclaimed picture? The one-word answer is: “Anhedonia.” (Some jokers contend it was “Anne Hedonia,” but they are wrong.)

Anhedonia refers to a psychological condition: acute melancholia, an affliction that Woody Allen shared at the time with Alvy Singer (his character in “Annie Hall”). As cineaste Douglas Brode has noted, “The theme of anhedonia . . . runs through the picture, serving as the key that unlocks Alvy’s characterization.”

Apart from mixing his metaphors, Brode has pinpointed the essential fact not only of Allen’s oeuvre but his entire existence: Deep down, beneath the hangdog look of studied glumness, there’s a happy sybarite living on Manhattan’s Upper East Side demanding expression.

One of the pictures that did not make the festival, unfortunately, is “Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story,” a 25-minute mock documentary that recently surfaced about Woody’s years as a Nixon White House aide.

But as Caryn James wrote last week in a review for the New York Times: “It is not the Rosetta Stone of Woody Allen studies. It is not a lost masterpiece, either.”

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Also screening in Orange County:

* “The Dark Corner” (1946), starring Lucille Ball (cast in a serious role against the grain), Friday, 6:30 p.m., Orange County Museum of Art, 855 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach. $3-$5. (714) 759-11122.

* “Frank Lloyd Wright,” a documentary, Tuesday, noon, the Lyon Auditorium at the Museum Education Center of the Orange County Museum of Art, 855 San Clemente Drive. Free. (714) 759-1122.

* “Broken Rainbow” (1985), an Academy Award-winning documentary about the relocation of the Navajo tribe in Arizona and their resistance (narrated by Martin Sheen, with Burgess Meredith and Buffy Sainte-Marie), presented by the Native America Foundation, Southern California Chapter, Sunday, 1:30 p.m., the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main Street, Santa Ana. Free. (714) 921-2202.

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In L.A. and beyond:

The American Cinematheque continues at Raleigh Studios its daunting Really Long Film Series with Bela Tarr’s seven-hour “Satantango” (1994), a darkly comic saga of the disintegration of an Hungarian farming collective (Friday at 7:15 p.m.) and Manoel de Oliveira’s “The Satin Slipper” (1985), a seven-hour film within a play by Paul Claudel about a love between a Spanish conquistador and the wife of a provincial governor (screening in two parts, Saturday at 7:15 p.m. and Sunday at 6:15 p.m.) (213) 466-FILM.

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s stunning “Antonio Gaudi” (1985) returns by popular demand to the Nuart for two more special screenings, Saturday and Sunday at noon only. This is a 72-minute homage to the Catalan architect whose buildings--Art Nouveau carried to glorious extremes--are every bit as undulating as those sand dunes in Teshigahara’s classic “Woman in the Dunes.” Gaudi blurred the line between architecture and sculpture and, drawing on motifs from ancient regional structures, created an amazing array of sumptuously decorated fairy tale buildings that remain the glory of Barcelona. (310) 478-6379.

“Let’s Kill All the Lawyers,” a talky, tedious satire on attorney excesses, opens Friday at the Santa Monica 4-Plex. (310) 394-9741. Craig Schlattman’s “The Seller” is also overly talky, a “Lolita” variation in which a used car dealer (Brian Brophy) coming apart kills a tiresome couple who refuse to buy the last car on his lot and then hits the road with their 12-year-old daughter (Kathy Morozova). (213) 617-0268.

LACE, 6522 Hollywood Blvd., presents “Take Me to Your Leader,” a film and video series presented in conjunction with the current exhibition of selections from Jeffrey Vallance’s “Nixon Museum” and Vicente Razo’s “Museo Salinas.” The first program will be tonight at 8 p.m. and again on Jan. 15, the second on Dec. 18 and Jan. 22. (213) 957-1777.

Times staff writer Kevin Thomas contributed to this report.