An editor friend of mine sent me an interesting note about Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. They're celebrating the release of their new film Grindhouse by holding a retrospective of Grindhouse Movies- at the New Beverly Cinema. Among the oddities and lowbudget 60's & 70's exploitation films was this:

a trifecta of animated films on March 23-24 that includes Shame of the Jungle, an adult cartoon from France about an ape man whose girlfriend is kidnapped by a gang of giant penises at the behest of their queen, a 14-breasted bald woman.

Tarzoon or Shame of the Jungle ( 1975) is a bizarre film directed by Belgian cartoonist Picha. It features humor like the chimp swinging from tree to tree by grabbing Tarzan's you-know-what instead of a vine. The film used a lot of freelance European animators and Montrealers who were bopping around at the time, and a rare improv track by then unknown stars John Belushi, Christopher Guest and Bill Murray.(the track was done before Saturday Night Live debuted, when both were still at Second City). Tarzoon was voiced by Johnny Weismuller Jr.. If you're sensitive see it at your own risk, it's a pretty twisted toon.


For Trivia Fans, the New Beverly has been a retro house since 1978 and before that a porn theater named the Eros. Before that in the 1940s it was the site of a nightclub called Slapsie-Maxies, a Hollywood landmark hangout owned by LA gangster Mickey Cohen. In 1945 Cohen brought out to LA for this club a little know duo named Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis. http://www.newbevcinema.com