This movie was shown in "Smell-O-Vision". The theater was equipped with a system that gave off various odors in sync with this movie. The opening scene involved a butterfly flitting through a rose garden, with accompanying delicious odors. Later on, a barrel of wine fell off of a cart going up a hill, and rolled down the street only to smash at the bottom, again to the accompanying odor. The perfume of The Woman of Mystery (Dame Elizabeth Taylor), i.e. Scent of Mystery, was a key element to the story, and involved in the climax of the mystery.
The "Smell-O-Vision" gimmick did not work as intended. Moviegoers in the balcony said the aromas reached them too late to coincide with the on-screen action. Some said the scents were much too faint. Negative word-of-mouth and reviews doomed the movie and the gimmick.
Peter Sellers was suggested by director Jack Cardiff for the lead role, but producer Michael Todd, Jr. on meeting him, thought that he was a most humorless man, and rejected him outright.
This movie was re-released under the title "Holiday in Spain" without the odors, and shown in Cinerama equipped houses in 70mm as a single strip Cinerama presentation, much like a It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) and several other movies a few years later. It was not successful.
The smell was not blown in through the air conditioning vents (as it was done in Beyond the Great Wall (1964)) - every seat had a little tube under it, and by the time this movie played in Los Angeles, they'd perfected clearing the air between smells.
Elizabeth Taylor: Dame Elizabeth Taylor, at the end of the movie as "The Woman of Mystery", was married to Mike Todd, whose son Michael Todd, Jr. produced this movie. She was married to Eddie Fisher at the time, who sang two songs on the soundtrack: "The Scent of Mystery" and "The Chase".