The Dain Curse

James Coburn makes a wonderfully playful detective, somewhere between Nick Charles (The Thin Man) and Sam Spade. Like the movies of those characters, this is a complex story: actually 3 smaller mysteries wrapped in a larger one, which creates an odd tempo in the film. Normally a movie ends when the mystery is solved, but this movie keeps going onto another mystery like a rollercoaster. The version I saw was the 144 minute Anchor Bay video, which must have been abridged. This might account for a few scenes which faded inexplicably into others. Aside from that, the movie was quite entertaining. Though I was relieved when the entire mystery was really solved, I wanted to keep watching that wise, older, chivalrous, not-too-world-weary to be heartbroken detective.

Noting in the Wikipedia article on Dashiell Hammett only 3 of his 5 full length novels became motion pictures. But the three The Thin Man, The Glass Key and The Maltese Falcon became classic films all. The Maltese Falcon as we know was done 3 times as well.

A fourth one The Dain Curse was deliberately segmented into three self contained mysteries which for purposes of adaption fitted nicely into the television mini-series format.

James Coburn played our protagonist/cynical hero Hamilton Nash and I think Coburn should have done more detective stories, he was perfectly cast for the part.

It starts out as an investigation of a jewel robbery of a family the Leggetts. It's Coburn who deduces that he thinks the robbery story has a lot of holes in it. The Leggatts are Paul Harding, wife Beatrice Straight and her stepdaughter Nancy Addison. Straight is also Addison's blood aunt, Harding's first wife was Straight's sister. They are members of the Dain family upon which it is said there is a legendary curse.

One who tries hard to convince Nash there's something to this curse business is Jason Miller, Coburn's hard drinking novelist buddy. As this is 1928 and Prohibition rules the land that was some hard drinking indeed.

The Dain Curse might be the bloodiest novel Dashiell Hammett ever wrote. Several members of the Dain family die here including those who married into the family and those who had some involvement with them. Still Coburn thinks there's a guiding intelligence at work here and of course he's right.

A lot of expense went into this production and you really do think you're in 1928, cars and costumes definitely authentic.

Look for good performances by Jean Simmons as a cult church leader, Hector Elizondo as a hick sheriff, and the future Data from Star Trek, The Next Generation Brent Spiner as one of the cult members in good standing.

The Dain Curse is definitely worth watching for more than James Coburn and Dashiell Hammett fans.

I'm not surprised other reviewers found this mini-series confusing if they watched this video version: it has over half the scenes cut from it. The original series ran over four nights at six hours. Minus the commercial time, it clocks in at just over 4 1/2 hours. This video release is only 2 hours, 17 minutes long (despite the fact that the box says 193 minutes!)

In it's original form, it's a near masterpiece of mood, style, and suspense with a terrific cast. Every time you think the mystery has been solved, a new mystery begins. And unlike most mystery movies today, when you finally arrive at the end and learn who the real villain is, it all makes perfect sense.

So if you ever have a chance to catch it on some cable station, or if the DVD ever comes out, don't miss it. But skip the ripoff video!

I was somewhat disappointed by this movie. I love Dashiell Hammett but the video I say, just over two hours, looks like it was edited by Picasso. There were some scenes that just didn't make sense. I would really like to see the entire movie if there is one available because I found the atmosphere and acting first rate though Coburn is as far from the Continental Op as a man could be. Frank Cannon would have been more appropriate. I understand why people are confused by this movie. At its present length it makes as much sense as a Richard Simmons workout video.

ITS THE CURSE MAN - THE CURSE OF BAD EDITING

An odd collection of stars.. brent spiner from star trek. Jean simmons, star of a thousand old movies. James coburn, who has made films in every genre. Jason miller, who was father karras in excorcist. This started as a miniseries, shown over several nights, but is currently on tubi streaming channel, and clocks in at three hours. When ham nash, private eye, is hired to recover stolen diamonds, we go on a grand adventure. With some dead bodies. And addiction. And cults. Bombings. A little of everything! It rambles here and there, similar to the big sleep, but even the rambling is fun to watch. It's a murder mystery, broken into three parts. And no, it really didn't need to be this long; it easily could have been two, maybe two and a half hours. Lots of jazz, in between the action. Long pauses. There seemed to be some slow motion here and there. And if you're wondering why dain is spelled that way, it's someone's name. I'm a huge hammett fan, so i found it entertaining. Some might find the story too slow, but it all gets wrapped up neatly by the end.