Woody Allen Double Bills Offer Inspired Hilarity

If you ever wondered where some of the inspirations for early “Saturday Night Live” came from, take a good look at two MGM Double Feature laser disc packages ($40 each) featuring four of Woody Allen’s funniest films--”Love and Death” (1975) paired with “Bananas” (1971) and “Stardust Memories” (1980) with “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)” (1972).

These films are perfect for laser, since early Allen works are more a series of funny vignettes than a sustained piece of work. Not too much that “SNL” did surpasses some of the wit and craziness of these originals.

Allen’s imitators are anemic in comparison. Among the classic bits scattered throughout the four discs: the revolutionary Fielding Mellish ordering takeout food for the rebel forces of the tiny banana republic of San Marcos; the Spanish translator turning an English statement into an English-with-a-Spanish-accent statement; Howard Cosell’s “Wide World of Sports” commentary on the consummation of Mellish’s marriage; Allen’s devastatingly funny critique of a military stage play about contacting a social disease; his exuberant dance with Death (shades of John Belushi); Woody and Burt Reynolds getting ready for blastoff as two very nervous spermatozoa.

What is also obvious in these early films is Allen’s eye for talent. In all four films, there are unknown faces familiar to audiences in 1992, from Sylvester Stallone’s first appearance as a subway hooligan in the 1971 “Bananas” to bits by Daniel Stern and unbilled cameos by Louise Lasser and Laraine Newman in the 1980 “Stardust Memories.”

“Bananas” was Allen’s second film as director as well as co-writer and star and it stands up as one of his funniest and least pretentious efforts. MGM/UA has added an analogue track of Marvin Hamlisch’s musical score, but it’s hard to imagine why anyone would opt for Hamlisch over Allen.

Diane Keaton co-stars with Allen in “Love and Death,” a witty exploration of Bergmanesque and Tolstoian themes on the meaning of it all during Napoleon’s invasion of Mother Russia. Any film that has the line, “If Christ was a carpenter, what would he charge for bookshelves?” is destined to live forever. This is one comedy that is beautifully shot, giving it the look of an epic film, which makes the outrageous comic vignettes even funnier.

The uneven “Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex . . . “ makes for wonderful watching on laser. You can skip right to, or right past, the raunchy tasteless bits, such as John Carradine’s wild experiment that goes bust or Lou Jacobi’s cross-dressing or Gene Wilder’s unforgettable passion for his pet sheep or Allen the nervous sperm preparing for his rendezvous with destiny.

“Stardust Memories,” the most serious of the four, remains a clever satire on film critics and filmmakers and the price the artist pays for public success. It is more the Woody Allen of “Crimes and Misdemeanors” than the Woody Allen of “Take the Money and Run.” Those who still believe that early Allen was the best Allen will trade all of “Stardust Memories,” including the marvelous score, for one or two unforgettable scenes from “Bananas” or “Love and Death.”