Behind the Great Wall was chosen because distributor Walter Reade felt many of the scenes would be even more impressive with scents added. Because it had won major awards in Europe, it was expected to be well received in America – and it was. The film received scathing treatment from The New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther, who called it a "stunt" that had an "artistic benefit" of "nil". The accuracy of the odors was described as "capricious ... elusive, oppressive or perfunctory and banal ... merely synthetic smells that occasionally befit what one is viewing, but more often they confuse the atmosphere". By contrast, the film itself, which was not made with AromaRama in mind, received high praise. Further negative reviews came from The New Yorker. Not all reviews were unfavorable. The New York Herald Tribune, in its review titled "AromaRama Premieres Here: Audience Smells What It Sees and Hears in Movie", the uncited critic writes: "With a few minor exceptions, the audience last night pronounced the successtion of smells a total success from the start, which consisted of an opening from Chet Huntley, television commentator, who demonstrated what was about to happen by slicing an orange while the odor track suffused the theatre with a smell of oranges being sliced." A follow-up article in the December 13, 1959 Sunday Herald Tribune said: "Curiously enough, they do not give the impression of being blown in or wafted from any specific direction (although they are said to be linked to the airconditioning system.) Actually the individual smells simply appear in the nostrils without any effort being made to sniff or strain for them. And what is more remarkable, each individual odor disappears promptly when the image smelled leaves the screen ... There is no question about its effectiveness in creating illusions of reality." The Sunday News awarded the film stars out of a possible 4 stars in its review titled Behind Great Wall' Puts Smell on Screen". Reviewer Dorothy Masters wrote, "Several wise men anticipated the birth of AromaRama, the major prophet being Charles Weiss, a public relations executive, who journeyed afar to enlist the support of a chemical company, an electronic air-filter plant, a camera equipment firm and an industrial timer organization. Together they devised a workable system for coordinating the picture of an orange with the smell of an orange." The December 21, 1959 edition of Time Magazine