HOLIDAY IN SPAIN. Michael Todd Co., 1960. Denholm Elliott, Peter Lorre, Beverly Bentley, Paul Lukas, Liam Redmond, Leo McKern, Peter Arne, Diana Dors. Screenplay by Audrey and William Roos, based on their novel Ghost of a Chance as by Kelly Roos (novelized as Scent of Mystery). Directed by Jack Cardiff.

   Once upon a time Mike Todd married Elizabeth Taylor and wanted to make a movie of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, a big movie, and in that movie he wanted to use his new wide screen Todd-Ao process and new technology in sound, and generally revolutionize film in general because it was getting harder and harder to compete with television. And related to that he made a sort of experimental film called Scent of Mystery.

   As part of this he came up with a process called Smell-O-Vision where scenes in the film could be accompanied by scents that were sprayed onto viewers in the theater, and to best utilize this technology, he came up with a mystery where the scents would be clues to the mystery.

   For this project he purchased the rights to a book by Audrey and William Roos, who wrote as Kelly Roos, about a young man rushing around New York to prevent an innocent whose name he didn’t know and who did not know they were in danger from being murdered.

   Because the film was designed to show off Todd-Ao and Todd’s new sound system as well as Smell-O-Vision, he shot it in Spain, better scenery and more exotic scents, and being too clever for his own good called it Scent of Mystery.

   It was a pretty dismal failure. All the scents smelled the same and none of them any too good, and frankly the two hour and five minute running time was far too much for the slim plot, and despite a fine cast and a droll teaming of Denholm Elliott and Peter Lorre as the hero, mystery writer Oliver Larker on holiday, and a somewhat rascally taxi driver accompanying him on his Cook’s Tour of Spain, it was all a little much. Even an intermission that included a literal cliffhanger couldn’t help.

   It eventually played on television with scratch and sniff cards and in a more truncated form, but it didn’t really fare any better there.

   There is an unwritten rule that all films must be lavishly restored, so Scent of Mystery was lavishly restored as Holiday in Spain, and the good news is that it is gorgeous to look at. The bad news is that it is still a rather diffuse plot, and the experimental multi channel sound system doesn’t work at all on television and makes for confusing viewing as one track is dialogue and the other supposed to be the characters thoughts (well, Elliott the narrator and Lorre anyway).  It is difficult at times to know if they are actually talking to each other or thinking and if the other characters can hear them or should respond.

   The plot, as such is perfectly good, and the original Roos novel (Ghost of a Chance) handles it quite well. Here Oliver Larker and taxi driver/guide Lorre see a woman (Beverly Bentley) nearly run over. They think nothing of it at first until an unsavory character (Liam Redmond) says it was deliberate. Oliver dismisses that but then feels guilty and decides to find the woman and warn her, still feeling a bit of a fool until the unsavory type is murdered by Baron Paul Lukas, and Larker and his companion begin a scenic tour of Spain trying to reach the young woman before she can be killed.

   Is it her half brother, bullfighting aficionado Leo McKern who owns a resort where she appears to be hiding out at trying to kill her and who is the mysterious man in glasses (Peter Arne)? Who is the Baron, and why is he so friendly with McKern, and why are he and his henchmen trying to kill her and shooting at Larker? Even when you think you know, you don’t, and if they had cut this by forty minutes, left out the narration, and forgotten about the Smell-O-Vision it could have been a charming romantic suspense film.

   It is still gorgeous to look at and a little touch at the end with Todd’s un-billed wife Elizabeth Taylor is pleasant, but for the most part this film is a chore. It’s a gorgeous chore, but clearly a chore.

   Travelogues really shouldn’t have plots and plots really shouldn’t be travelogues, and when a movie stinks, it doesn’t help if that is also an actual physical fact. These are the lessons from Holiday in Spain.

   Critics as you might imagine had a field day with Scent of Mystery and Smell-O-Vision. It deserved it. Holiday in Spain is a better title, but the film is no holiday in Spain or anywhere else. One only hopes Elliott, Lorre, Lukas, McKern, and Arne enjoyed the paid vacation and wonders that it didn’t destroy any careers.