Long considered a “lost film” (defined as a known work with no surviving copy), 1962’s Pages of Death was ranked number fourteen in Gambit magazine’s list of fifteen “lost” films.

A 16mm print of the film was recently discovered in the collection of the Portland, Oregon based Oregon Historical Society.

Writing in Vintage Sleaze, Jim Linderman describes Pages of Death as the story of a teenage boy who “hung out reading pornography at Baker’s Variety Store until he couldn’t stand it any longer and murdered a girl in a whipped up frenzy of smut inspired rage.”
 

 
Two self-righteous, anti-smut-crusading, Dragnet-esque police detectives investigate the “sex fiend” murder of an eleven-year-old girl. The trail leads them to the rec-room of a teenage boy and his extensive porn stash. BUSTED.
 

 
The cops pay a visit to the shop owner to let him know he’s culpable in the young girl’s murder for peddling smut. Wrap-around segments narrated by Heisman Trophy winner, Tom Harmon deliver the Citizens for Decent Literature‘s over-the-top message that nudie magazines turn young men into raging sex maniacs. The exact same stock music Ed Wood used for Plan 9 From Outer Space plays over the soundtrack during the investigation.

Pages of Death is a hilariously dated exercise in nostalgic sex-paranoia that has been described as the “Reefer Madness of porn.” The Oregon Historical Society should be commended for making this lost classic available to the public.

You can watch it here:

H/T: Reddit