The movie industry is currently searching for ways to get butts back in seats. One thing it is unlikely to consider is resurrecting Smell-o-Vision, a much-hyped “immersive experience” that was meant to be the next big thing, then wasn’t.

First introduced during the 1939 New York World’s Fair by Hans Laube—a Swiss advertising exec-turned-“world-famous osmologist,” according to the press materials—the premise was that theaters could be rigged up with a system known as the “smell brain,” which would release odors via tubing to individual audience seats. 

The smell brain made its cinematic debut much later with the 1960 film Scent of Mystery starring Elizabeth Taylor, where aromas were central to the storyline. The smells emitted—which included pipe tobacco, shoe poli...