Scent of Mystery

The cinematography is great, as expected with Jack Cardiff directing. A lot of the shots are ingenious. The story, or lack of a story, is terrible. Denholm Elliot, usually an engaging actor, walks through the film in a sleepy state looking like he's waiting for direction. I can't blame him for that. Peter Lorre is his taxi driver, at least in closeups, and his wisecracking guide. The Cinerama filming is a real treat for me. I've seen several roadshow movies in Cinerama including Ice Station Zebra. Diana Dors has a way too short bikini cameo. The film should have been built around Dors in that bikini. Elizabeth Taylor, wife of the producer, pops up at the end.

I was at the premiere in Hollywood (1960) - A first-date thing ......

Didn't know what to expect .. but the pipe tobacco and peach smells (among SEVERAL more) were astounding! Each time you smelled the perfume... you KNEW something bad was going to happen! .....

I don't know how they did it, maybe a hose or fan mounted on the seat in front of you, but when the scene changed, the smell did too !! NEET!

If I remember correctly, the program LISTED all the smells you would encounter during the film as well.

Needless to say, the food smells probably helped the concession stand because the lines were a mile long !!

My date was NOT impressed... (should have made her buy popcorn!)

Too bad, This film followed the 3-D craze and is now gone.

Scent of Mystery, which is also known as Holiday in Spain. Stars Denholm Elliott and the talented but mysterious Peter Lorre. at the beginning, the card tells us we're going to see the original Smilebox version. wikipedia dot org shows us that this is a curved version of letterbox filming, where the camera tries to show things from the viewers point of view, curving around the viewer. then we spend a lot of time, as the butterfly flies over Spain. Elliott is "Larker", the writer who has created mystery stories about his private eye. and Lorre is his taxi driver. i guess because he's a mystery writer, he thinks he is caught up in a local incident, and they drive all over Spain following Mrs. Jordan (Beverly Bentley, who was married to writer Norman Mailer). and of course, we end up in Pamplona, during the running of the bulls. at one point, Peter Lorre even jokes about being in Casablanca years ago, stealing someone's wife. it kinds of plods along, as the story and the taxi tires go flat. a couple plot twists and turns, as Larker tries to help save the attractive young lady. Directed by Jack Cardiff, who won for Black Narcissus. and one of only three films produced by Mike Todd junior. (his dad, Todd senior had invented several filming techniques, before passing away a couple years back. and was married to Liz Taylor.) this adventure is like a slow, low-budget north by northwest. The best part of this film is the scenery! beautiful mountains, castles, views of Spain.

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.

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.