Jack Cardiff’s Don Quixote was never realized. The film died, tragically, along with four passengers in a twin-engine Lockheed Lodestar above New Mexico. Mike Todd had arrived in the state on a promotional stop for Around the World in Eighty Days. Five days later, he was airborne again, flying to New York City to accept the Friars Club’s "Showman of the Year" award. Icy conditions and a heavy load contributed to engine failure, killing the producer, along with two copilots and screenwriter, Art Cohn, who was working on the biography, The Nine Lives of Michael Todd.
Cohn’s wife, Marta, cobbled together the final two chapters of the book, based on his copious notes. “I have one test for biography,” Cohn writes in the book’s introduction. “Would the subject, regardless of name, fame or infamy, make a good novel? Mike Todd, yes. He could have been conceived by Shakespeare, Cervantes or Dumas.”
Todd had made modifications to the plane, which put Lucky Liz well above the legal weight limit. The plane’s namesake, Todd’s wife Elizabeth Taylor, had stayed home with a cold at her husband’s insistence. Prior to taking off, Todd had phoned several friends, including Kirk Douglas and Joseph Mankiewicz, in hopes of finding someone to play cards with on the long flight. "Ah, c'mon," he told one, "It's a good, safe plane. I wouldn't let it crash. I'm taking along a picture of Elizabeth, and I wouldn't let anything happen to her."
Mike Todd Jr. made known his wishes for his father to be cremated. Little of the film producer’s body was recovered from the wreckage, beyond dental records, a wedding ring and platinum cufflinks. Taylor insisted on a burial and, according to rumors, placed the $100,000 diamond ring in his coffin. The story had apparently made its way to grave robbers, who exhumed Todd 20 years later, placing the bag of his remains against a nearby tree upon finishing the job.
Following the crash, Todd Jr. devoted himself to carrying on his father’s work. Beyond his film production, Todd Sr. had made a name for himself working on the Broadway stage and developing technologies for movie theaters. One in particular had alluded him in life. Producing a string of musicals for the 1939 World’s Fair, he crossed paths with Hans Laube.
It was there the Swiss inventor debuted “Scentovision.” The technology captivated audiences, “produc[ing] odors as quickly and easily as the soundtrack of a film produces sound,” according to The New York Times. The accuracy was decidedly hit or miss, as scents like incense (hit) and bacon (miss) wafted through the crowd, synced to the 35-minute film, Mein Traum. In spite of the initial excitement, Laube was unable to find an investor, returning to his native Europe after the end of the Second World War.
Todd Sr. had never forgotten what he had smelled that day. Father and son discussed reviving Scentovision to enhance the 70mm Technicolor extravaganza, Around the World in Eighty Days, but ultimately thought better of it. After his father’s death, however, Todd Jr. embraced the forgotten technology, signing Laube to a film deal. Included in the language was a name change, with the Cinerama branding experts eventually landing on “Smell-O-Vision.” When asked why he’d not opted for a more dignified name, the executive answered, dryly, “I don’t understand how you can be ‘dignified’ about a process that introduces smells into a theater.”
Following the box office success of Around the World in 80 Days, Todd Jr. saw fit to adapt another novel. This time, he chose Ghost of a Chance, a pulpy detective paperback by Kelley Roos, the pseudonym of husband and wife writing team, Audrey Kelley and William Roos. It was the sixth entry in the 11-book Jeff and Haila Troy Mystery Series. A step down from Jules Verne, perhaps, but still a solid mystery on which to hang a movie plot.
Hollywood had mined the series several times, producing A Night to Remember (1942), Dangerous Blondes (1943) and Come Dance with Me (1959). In the days before cinematic universes, there was little in the way of tangible connections between the films beyond the source material. Substantial changes were made throughout, including the couples’ names. When time came to adapt Ghost of a Chance, Haila was unceremoniously disappeared from the plot.
Cardiff, fresh off the successful D.H. Lawrence adaptation, Sons and Lovers, was tapped to direct. Like the Todds, he saw Smell-o-Vision’s potential to enhance the filmgoing experience. “It was a great idea in the beginning,” he told an interviewer years later, “and using smells in a film was also an ambition I had had for years.” The ad copy was far more bombastic, noting, “First they moved (1895)! Then they talked (1927)! Now they smell!”
Ghost of a Chance became Scent of Mystery. The setting moved from New York City to a presumably more pleasant smelling Spain, trekking some 62,000 miles from city to city over course of its 125-minute run time. Peter Sellers, suffering from nerves, failed to impress Todd Jr. over a lunch audition. The part of Oliver Larkin (née Jeff Troy) went instead to Denholm Elliott. The script maintained his job as a mystery writer, now on vacation in Europe, who enlists the assistance of taxi driver Smiley (Peter Lorre), attempting to foil the murder of an heiress (Elizabeth Taylor in an uncredited cameo).
By his own account, Cardiff began to have misgivings about Smell-O-Vision during production. Neither he nor Todd Jr. had actually smelled the stuff. Laube sent samples to assuage their fears, but the package did little to convince the filmmakers that tying the $2 million film’s success to an untested technology wasn’t a potentially grave misstep. Cardiff noted years later that, “each labelled glass smelled exactly the same as the others — like a very cheap eau de cologne.”
Chicago’s Cinestage Theatre was chosen to test run both Smell-O-Vision and Scent. Laube installed an elaborate setup, including fans and a mile of tubeing. The film included 30 odors, in all. Some – like the killer’s tobacco smoke – were integral to the plot. Others, while not essential to the film going experience, were nevertheless ham-fistedly shoe-horned in. The cost of implementing the technology was prohibitively expensive, ranging from $15,000 to $1 million. In the end, it would only play in a handful of locations in glorious Smell-O-Vision.
The technology, too, arrived with its share of limitations. The smells were often too faint, and the hissing of the machines too loud, along with the exaggerated huffing sounds of audience members attempting to detect the aroma. Those sitting in the balcony noted that the scents reached their section well after the inciting action occurred on screen. Laube worked to improve the experience in the intervening weeks, but poor reviews traveled faster than the smells, dooming the process. A New York Times critic helpfully suggested that the Smell-O-Vision technology ought instead be use “to squirt laughing gas at the audience .”
Scent of Mystery would ultimately be released in theaters without Smell-O-Vision under the title, Holiday in Spain. The Daily Telegraph went on to note that, “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.”
As for Laube, “I'm afraid it's a sad story,” his daughter, Carmen, explained years later. “The Scent of Mystery was his swan song. He lost all his money, my mom went to work, and he died about 16 years later, penniless and broken.”
Sources:
Jack Cardiff about "Scent of Mystery" https://www.in70mm.com/news/2016/jack_cardiff/index.htm
Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinema, Museums, and the Immersive View By Alison Griffiths
Odors Added to Films and Video, Even Those of Oranges or Ham; Odors Are 'Shown' https://www.nytimes.com/1957/11/23/archives/odots-added-to-films-and-video-even-those-of-oranges-or-ham-odors.html
The Lingering Reek of Smell-O-Vision https://www.latimes.com/business/la-tm-oops6feb05-story.html