Video: The hilarious 1960s anti-porn film that links smutty mags to child murder
- Text by Adam White
“They’ve found a girl’s body in the woods.” “Murder?” “Sex fiend!”
Pages of Death is a Reefer Madness-style ‘anti-pornography’ short film warning ’60s parents of the dangers of adult magazines. It has just been rescued from oblivion by the Oregon Historical Society. The film was produced by the Hour of St. Francis radio program in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1962, and distributed by the Citizens for Decent Literature group – a pro-censorship league affiliated with the infamous Roman Catholic anti-pornography campaigner Charles Keating.
Pages of Death tells the story of two hard-boiled noir detectives investigating the disappearance of poor little 12-year-old Karen Fleming, who has failed to come home from school. Her parents, glitzy upper-middle-class WASPs, are understandably panicked. Their investigation leads them to the local corner shop, where its sleazy proprietor (played by Kelsey Grammer’s deformed twin) has been peddling smut rags to impressionable young men.
One such youngster is dead-eyed wet rag Paul Halliday, who has been spending a little too much time in his, ahem, recreation room out back. Faster than you can say “sick masturbatory sex den”, the detectives raid Paul’s bachelor pad and think they’ve pegged their prime suspect. Hidden in his drawers are such serial-killer-in-training titles as Scorching Sex Stories, Night of Horrors, and Gals!
“But no!” Paul’s appalled parents protest, pornographic magazines are the kinds of things found on “skid row”, not in leafy white bread suburbia. Wrong, one of the cops insists. This kind of trash is being sold at your friendly, local neighbourhood store.
Pages of Death is a must-watch – an eye-opening time capsule of a period in culture where the female orgasm didn’t exist, Rock Hudson was straight, and rampant censorship was the only way to tackle murderous violence. Sit enraptured as it builds to the wholesome, family-friendly message that it’s all Penthouse‘s fault that the preppy weirdo horribly murdered the little girl and tossed her body in a dumpster.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
You might like
Exploring Bucovina, the last wild place in Europe
Noroc! — 70% of Romania’s northern provinces are covered in ancient woodland, with its people cultivating a close relationship with the land that stretches back millennia. Jack Burke forages, eats and drinks his way around the region.
Written by: Jack Burke
Why is the Met Police using EsDeeKid for ‘copaganda’?
Slop Enforcement — Among the AI slop and ragebait of late-stage social media, newsletter columnist Emma Garland has noticed a jarring trend – London’s police force appropriating criminalised subcultures for engagement purposes.
Written by: Emma Garland
“I didn’t care if I got sacked”: Sleazenation’s Scott King in conversation with Radge’s Meg McWilliams
Radgenation — For our 20th Anniversary Issue, Huck’s editor Josh Jones sits down with the legendary art director and the founder of a new magazine from England’s northeast to talk about taking risks, crafting singular covers and disrupting the middle class dominance of the creative industries.
Written by: Josh Jones
Free-spirited, otherworldly portraits of Mexico City’s queer youth
Birds — Pieter Henket’s new collaborative photobook creates a stage for CDMX’s LGBTQ+ community to express themselves without limitations, styling themselves with wild outfits that subvert gender and tradition.
Written by: Isaac Muk
The suave style and subtle codes of gay San Francisco in the ’70s
Seminal Works — Hal Fischer’s new photobook explores the photographer’s archive, in which he documented the street fashion and culture of the city post-Gay Liberation, and pre-AIDS pandemic.
Written by: Miss Rosen
The stripped, DIY experimentalism of SHOOT zine
Zine Scene — Conceived by photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya in the ’00s, the publication’s photos injected vulnerability into gay portraiture, and provided a window into the characters of the Brooklyn arts scene. A new photobook collates work made across its seven issues.
Written by: Miss Rosen
