Oregon Historical Society has posted Pages of Death, a "long-lost" anti-pornography movie in similar vein to the legendary Reefer Madness: "These kids can pick up girly magazines and sex-violence stuff all over town!"
It was released in 1962, much later than most of those propaganda exploitation flicks. If it was already old-fashioned at the time it came out, that fact might not be obvious to present-day viewers.
The blurb follows…
Considered a "lost film" as of early 2016, a faded 16mm print was discovered in the Moving Image collection at the Oregon Historical Society in 2015. Created in 1962 the film was recently ranked #14 in Gambit Magazine's list of 15 Films Lost to Time.
An anti-pornography and pro censorship film running 27 minutes in length, Pages of Death was produced by the Hour of St. Francis radio program and distributed by the Citizens for Decent Literature (Cincinnati, Ohio) which was affiliated with the Roman Catholic anti-pornography campaigner, Charles Keating.
Charles Keating is probably best remembered as an overzealous and nearly rabid campaigner against pornography in the 50s and 60s, including leadership on the 1969 President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. Later, as a corrupt and criminal banker in the 80s, he ran the American Continental Corporation and the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which so exploited the banking deregulations under Reagan that it led to the complete collapse of the Savings and Loan industry, not to mention investigations of the "Keating Five," which included the current Senator John McCain.
Tom Harmon, the narrator of the film, was married to actress Elyse Knox whose career include being a WWII pin up girl, which landed her similar roles in quite a few films. In 1962 when Pages of Death was produced, he was a well-known sportscaster at CBS and delivered the nightly sports report on KTLA-TV in Los Angeles. Late in 1962, he joined the sports staff at the ABC radio network, produced his own show and eventually created his own production company. The actor Mark Harmon (Summer School) is the youngest of his three children.
