Scent of Mystery (1960)

SCENT OF MYSTERY  (1960)  ¢ ¢  
    D: Jack Cardiff
    Denholm Elliott, Peter Lorre, Beverly Bentley, 
    Paul Lukas, Liam Redmond, Leo McKern,
    Peter Arne, Diana Dors, Judith Furse 
Denholm Elliott plays a vacationing mystery writer who tracks an attractive blonde all over Spain, believing that somebody's trying to kill her. Peter Lorre plays his accomplice and sidekick, a taxi driver who always keeps the meter running. This was originally released in "Smell-O-Vision" - a gimmick in which scents were introduced in the theater, corresponding to whatever the characters were doing (or smelling) at the time. It bombed at the box office and was eventually reissued under the title "Holiday In Spain". The camera soars, swerves, sails and swoops all over the place, but it's really not much of a movie: big, long, colorful and completely innocuous. It's not hard to see why it lost money. Smell-O-Vision didn't last long, either, though John Waters did attempt something similar with scratch-and-sniff cards when he released "Polyester" in "Odorama" in 1981.