Scent of Mystery

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Scent of Mystery
Directed by	Jack Cardiff
Produced by	Mike Todd, Jr.
Written by	Gerald Kersh Kelley Roos
Starring	Denholm Elliott Peter Lorre Elizabeth Taylor
Music by	Harold Adamson Mario Nascimbene Jordan Ramin
Cinematography	John von Kotze
Editing by	James E. Newcom
Release date(s)	1960
Running time	125 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

Scent of Mystery is a 1960 mystery film that featured the one and only use of Smell-O-Vision, a system that timed odors to points in the film's plot. It was the first (and only) film in which aromas were integral to the story, providing important details to the audience. It was produced by Mike Todd, Jr., who in conjunction with his father Mike Todd had produced such spectacles as This is Cinerama and Around the World in Eighty Days.

[edit] Plot

The plot was relatively simple. A photographer, played by Denholm Elliott, discovers a plan to murder an American heiress, played by Elizabeth Taylor in an uncredited role, while on vacation in Spain. He enlists the help of a taxi driver, played by Peter Lorre, to travel across the Spanish countryside in order to thwart the crime. Some scenes were designed to highlight the Smell-O-Vision's capabilities. In one, wine casks fall off a wagon and roll down a hill, smashing against a wall, at which point a grape scent was released. Other scenes were accompanied by aromas that revealed key points to the audience. The assassin was identified by the smell of a smoking pipe, for example.

[edit] Smell-O-Vision

Scent of Mystery was developed specifically with Smell-O-Vision in mind. Although Scent of Mystery was not the first film to be accompanied by aromas (that was 1959's Behind the Great Wall), it was the most technologically advanced. Ads for the film proclaimed: "First they moved (1895)! Then they talked (1927)! Now they smell!" Todd, who was a bit of a showman, engaged in such hyperbole as, "I hope it's the kind of picture they call a scentsation!" He also got help from newspaper columnists such as Earl Wilson, who lauded the system, saying Smell-O-Vision "can produce anything from skunk to perfume, and remove it instantly." New York Times writer Richard Nason believed it was a major advance in filmmaking. As such, expectations for the film were great.

The film opened in three specially equipped theaters in February, 1960, in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Unfortunately, the mechanism did not work properly. According to Variety, aromas were released with a distracting hissing noise and audience members in the balcony complained that the scents reached them several seconds after the action was shown on the screen. In other parts of the theater, the odors were too faint, causing audience members to sniff loudly in an attempt to catch the scent.

Technical adjustments by the manufacturers of Smell-O-Vision solved these problems, but by then it was too late. Negative reviews, in conjunction with word of mouth, caused the film to fail miserably. Todd did not produce another film until 1979's The Bell Jar, which was also his last film.

The film eventually was retitled as Holiday in Spain and re-released, sans odors. However, as The Daily Telegraph described it, "the film acquired a baffling, almost surreal quality, since there was no reason why, for example, a loaf of bread should be lifted from the oven and thrust into the camera for what seemed to be an unconscionably long time."

Scent of Mystery was aired once on television by MTV in the 1980s, in conjunction with a convenience store promotion that offered scratch and sniff cards that viewers were to use to recreate the theater experience.