Scent of Mystery

There was a race to get smells into films at this time. It was won by the Walter Reade organisation in late 1959 with a documentary called "Behind The Great Wall", which added smells after the film was completed, in a process called aromarama. "scent of Mystery" was produced by Mike Todd Jr. in 70mm, with the smells to be used as clues to the mystery. It was a lighthearted romp, beautifully shot in Spain, with Elizabeth Taylor as a guest star. It has never been revived, or put out on video.

I saw this movie with the smells. Since the smells in many cases served as clues, it would be confusing without them. The machine that generated the smells was located in the lobby for examination by theater goers. The smells were introduced to the theater using a compressed air system and after a few examples, the audience recognized the noise (which was minimal) and commented to each other "Here comes another one" All in all not really a very good movie but a fun experience. I don't really see how this could ever have been anything more than an experiment.

Englishman Oliver Larker (Denholm Elliott) is on vacation in Spain. He doesn't speak the language. He hires taxi driver Smiley (Peter Lorre). He thinks that he has stumbled upon a murder attempt on an unknown blonde woman.

This movie apparently came with a few gimmicks. It had Smell-O-Vision system and shown in Cinerama. I just simply watched it on TCM. While it maintained the curved picture, the smells can't be transferred. It's still interesting to see Peter Lorre at the end of his career. It's also interesting to see old Spain. I love the locations and the real people. The best scene may be the running of the bulls and it's nothing more than a traffic jam to the story. It was probably interesting to have the smells. There is a lot of interesting stuff other than the main story. I would also prefer to have less narration. This is better as a travelog.

I love the IMDb. Where else can you get people commenting on a film they clearly haven't seen in the way it was first exhibited. Only one commenter claims to have seen it. The others saw a seventy-minute butchered version taped with a video camera aimed at a seventy-millimeter movie screen which is the ONLY time it ever aired on TV (in other words, it was never "sold" to TV). Scent of Mystery was a true oddity, but one I adored. The camera-work and sound recording were unbelievably brilliant, and the film was a lark. The smells were dispensed to each seat via a tube and by the time of the LA run they'd figured out how to "clean" the air between smells and it worked very well. As to Holiday in Spain, here we have people making comments when they clearly know not of what they speak. When Scent flopped big-time, it was sold to the Cinerama corporation. The film was converted into three-panel Cinerama, cut by twenty-five minutes (making its plot completely incoherent - of course, this is the version people are commenting on - well, not exactly - their commenting on the shortened version which was further shortened for its one-time TV showing), narration by Elliot was added (terrible), and the intermission point, which in the original was sublime, was moved up by twenty minutes and made no sense at all. Given that all but one of the commentators here have only seen the dreck that they showed on TV (completely faded print and missing sixty percent of its image), well, I find it a bit galling. The Todd AO image was and is stunning, the director of the film was the great cameraman, Jack Cardiff. And the sound - amazing eight track Todd-Belock sound system which, to my mind, has never been bettered. Not by Dolby, not by DTS, not by anything. And, just in case you think my memory may be faulty, I have just this day watched a seventy-millimeter print of the film, the shortened (but not as short as TV) Holiday in Spain - and that sound blew me away.

So, at this time, Scent Of Mystery is a lost film. It's never even been printed down to 35mm. It is uncertain whether any 70mm elements survive for the uncut Scent - there are 70mm elements (and even YCMs) for Holiday in Spain. If the uncut neg can be found, I am here to tell you there are plans afoot for a DVD.

This is very silly and should not under any circumstances be taken seriously. Any attempt to not follow that advice will lead into the inevitable result of you not liking the movie at all. Actually of you dreading the movie. And it's comedy might be considered poor taste, it's acting poor too.

But it is silly and simple for a reason and it stays true to that formula til the end (even if it has hits and misses throughout). The main character with his conviction of knowing more than he actually does helps the movie a lot. Also Mr. Lorre in a role that we are not used seeing him, is great too. All in all, a crime comedy, that might not be something to really recommend ... But still funny to watch