Michael Todd Jr., 72; Producer

Michael Todd Jr., son of the legendary producer of “Around the World in 80 Days,” who worked on the first Cinerama movie and later produced the only feature film ever shot in Smell-o-Vision, has died. He was 72.

Todd died of lung cancer Sunday at his home in County Carlow, Ireland.

After his flamboyant father died in a plane crash in 1958, the soft-spoken Todd took over the reins of his motion picture production company. The 28-year-old Todd inherited half of his father’s multimillion-dollar estate, which he shared with his 26-year-old stepmother, Elizabeth Taylor, who had married Michael Todd Sr. only 13 months before his death.

Although Todd never rivaled his father’s success as a producer, he made history with “Scent of Mystery,” a 1960 film about a vacationing Englishman who discovers a plot to kill a young American tourist in Spain.

The movie, which starred Denholm Elliott and Peter Lorre, tapped an invention created by a Swiss professor who discovered how to reproduce odors in movie theaters. The process consisted of tiny plastic tubes hidden under the theater seats, through which could be pumped garlic, pipe smoke and other scents from a centralized “smell brain.”

Newspaper advertisements for “Scent of Mystery” played up the revolutionary process’ place in film history, proclaiming, “First They Moved (1895)! Then They Talked (1927)! Now They Smell!”

Unfortunately, most critics turned their noses up at the process. Sniffed Time magazine: “Customers will probably agree that the smell they liked best was the one they got during intermission: fresh air.”

As for the picture itself, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther deemed it an “artless, loose-joined ‘chase’ picture set against some of the scenic beauty of Spain.”

Born in Los Angeles in 1929, Todd was the only son of the senior Todd and his first wife, Bertha, who died in 1946.

The elder Todd, who barely made it through high school, insisted that his son receive a good education. After graduating from Amherst College, where he majored in philosophy, Todd went to work with his father, who was a producer on “This Is Cinerama,” a travelogue that demonstrated the process’ 3-D effect.

It was the younger Todd’s suggestion to include what became the film’s most famous sequence: a stomach-churning roller-coaster ride from the vantage point of the coaster’s front car.

After working on “This is Cinerama,” Todd joined the Navy. After his discharge in 1957, he joined his father’s film company as vice president.

Following the lead of his father, who had produced attractions for the 1939 New York World’s Fair, Todd produced a racially integrated minstrel show for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. But whereas his father became one of the earlier exposition’s top impresarios, Todd did not. His “America, Be Seated!” closed after two performances.

With his first wife, Sarah, whom he married in 1953, Todd had six children, Cyrus, Susan, Sarah, Eliza Haselton, Daniel and Oliver.

In 1972, after his first wife’s death, Todd married Susan McCarthy, with whom he had two sons, Del and James. The family moved to Ireland in 1973.

Todd and his wife co-wrote “A Valuable Property: The Life Story of Michael Todd,” in 1983.

In addition to his wife and children, he is survived by a half-sister, Liza.