Woody Allen “The Nightclub Years (1964-68)” EMI...

Woody Allen “The Nightclub Years (1964-68)”

EMI (import)

If you saw “Stardust Memories,” Woody Allen’s autobiographical film from 1980, you probably remember that scene in which some fans profess their love for his work, “especially the early, funny” stuff. Anyone who falls into that camp should adore this double-CD compilation drawn from three long-out-of-print LPs Allen recorded in the ‘60s. He’d just finished writing for TV at the time, and over the course of these 93 minutes there are more truly clever one-liners than you’ll find in a year’s worth of today’s sitcoms.

“I’m red-haired and fair-skinned. When I go to the beach, I don’t tan; I stroke.”

“I was thrown out of NYU my freshman year. I cheated on my metaphysics final--I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”

That last one comes from one of several extended, philosophically rooted bits on themes to which Allen would return time and again in his subsequent films: man’s place in the cosmos, the absurdity of human existence and, naturally, his foibles with women.

Decades before “Manhattan”--in which, when a friend accused him of having a God complex, he replied: “I’ve got to model myself after someone!”--he was doing this piece about one of his earliest experiences as an actor:

“We did a play in acting class by Paddy Chayefsky called ‘Gideon,’ and I played the part of God. It was typecasting. It was method acting, so two weeks beforehand I started to live the part offstage.

“I really came on godly: I put on a blue suit; I took taxicabs all over New York. I tipped big--cause He would have. I got into a fight with a guy, and I forgave him. It’s true--some guy hit my fender, and I said unto him: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply.’ (Pause.) But not in those words.”

Later, he spends several minutes on what is still a masterwork of comic writing--a description of a farcical moose-hunting expedition that begins in the woods of Upstate New York, moves to a costume party in the suburbs and winds up at the New York Athletic Club.

His timing and delivery haven’t changed much in 30 years, except that he has become less and less concerned with delivering the killer punch line. These CDs prove that even if he hadn’t gone on to join the ranks of auteur filmmakers, Allen still would deserve a place in the entertainers hall of fame as one tremendously funny guy.

(The compilation hasn’t been released in the U.S. and, according to a spokesman for the label, there are no immediate plans to release it. Fortunately, this import can be found at Tower Records.)