Behind the Great Wall

According to NYSA records, the film was also distributed under the title Breath of the East. Reviews, which reported either a 98 or 120 minute length for the film, noted that popular NBC news anchor Chet Huntley appeared onscreen to introduce the film as well as narrate it. As noted in press information and various reviews, Behind the Great Wall was an American version of an Italian documentary entitled La muraglia cinese, made under the direction of noted Italian documentarian Leonardo Bonzi, for Astra Cinematografica. For the American version, in addition to a new narration and the prologue featuring Huntley, a new process called AromaRama was utilized to deliver scents to the audience.
       As noted in contemporary sources, American distribution rights to La muraglia cinese were bought by exhibitor Walter Reade, who wanted it as his first AromaRama release. Charles Weiss developed the process and, working with Sidney Kaufman, a faculty member at New York's New School for Social Research, and Thomas Orchard, who had produced and written documentaries for Louis de Rochemont's March of Time series, adapted it to create discernable odors to be coordinated with various sequences of the film. The process was then delivered to the audience via air conditioning ducts. Once released, scents dissipated quickly by special electronic filters that accelerated the normal evaporation process. AromaRama thus enabled the audience to experience the added sensory pleasure of smelling, as well as seeing and hearing, the action of the film.
       A rival process, Smell-O-Vision, developed for producer Mike Todd, Jr.'s company, was used for the film Scent of Mystery (see below), which was released within a few weeks of the Behind the Great Wall premiere. News items and reviews noted that Reade had rushed his film into theaters to best Todd. However, unlike Behind the Great Wall, which added scents and a narration to a pre-existing picture, Scent of Mystery was produced to utilize scents.
       The Smell-O-Vision process differed from AromaRama in that it was delivered directly to individual theater seats rather than to the entire auditorium, hence was easier to control but more expensive to produce. Neither film created much enthusiasm among critics or the general public, who saw both AromaRama and Smell-O-Vision as mere novelties. According to a September 14, 1960 Hollywood Reporter news item, additional prints of Behind the Great Wall were being prepared for release without the AromaRama process [erroneously called "Odorama" in the article] because, "Reade admits that patrons did not cotton to the addition of odors to the sight-sound of the picture."