Watch This Long-Lost Anti-Pornography Film From 1962

A lost anti-pornography film called Pages of Death has been discovered in the moving image archives at the Oregon Historical Society. The pro-censorship film, narrated by sportscaster Tom Harmon (father of actor Mark Harmon), offers a glimpse into the hysteria that surrounded pornography in the 1950s and 1960s.

Throwing around terms like “sex-mania” and “skid row,” the work—produced by the Hour of St. Francis radio program and distributed by the Citizens for Decent Literature in 1962—tells the story of a teenager driven to murder a young girl by his obsession with “girly magazines.”

It also features an over-the-top tone: “This is the kind of stuff you find along skid row,” says the teen murderer’s father when he finds his son’s copies of Home of the Stripper and Shows All, Tells All, to which the film's detective responds, “Now you can find them at your neighborhood store."

But, as dated as the film sounds, Pages of Death is an important historical find, shedding light on 1960s views on pornography, sexuality, and censorship. Before its discovery, Pages of Death was listed as #14 on Gambit's list of top 15 lost films. Check it out above.

Banner Image Credit: Oregon Historical Society, YouTube