The Dain Curse (1978)

Wonderful Movie

Sorry, this movie sucks

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

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.

This did have the last actor to play Charlie Chan in a movie series. However, it was Roland Winters, not Sidney Toler. Nevertheless, mystery buffs should see this on DVD and not VHS as you will see the entire series. It is a lot less confusing that way.James Coburn is brilliant in it. You will see a young Star Trek: Next Generation "Data" here. I think this may before he appeared in Night Court. So get a DVD copy of this and take your time watching it. You will see an intricate mystery, actually multiple mysteries, unfold before your eyes. It may even take a couple of viewings to get it all.While slow paced it could only be presented that way for maximum enjoyment. The story has an extra treat as you get a glimpse of life in bygone times. It is fairly authentic to those by-gone times.Enjoy.

Someone, back in the misty reaches of 1977-78, had a pretty good idea: Take Dashiell Hammett's "The Dain Curse" and turn it into a TV mini-series "event." The novel itself, after all, had started out as a serialization in "Black Mask" magazine, and a legion of readers had faithfully followed its plot convolutions there, so why -- or so the reasoning must have gone -- shouldn't it work equally well on the installment plan by spreading a TV dramatization out over several nights?This, unfortunately, was the last good idea experienced by anybody in conjunction with the production.Any number of object lessons can -- and should be --drawn from what wound up being presented as "Dashiell Hammett's The Dain Curse." (Presumably, to differentiate it from "Joe Blow's The Dain Curse," an important distinction.) Object lesson #1: If you're going to slavishly follow a plot that has enough twists and turns and old fashioned red herrings to make "The Canterbury Tales" read like "Dick And Jane Floss Their Teeth," then you'd best make sure you've at least got a director and cast who can maintain a pace that will keep your audience riveted. Otherwise, you run the risk of numerous viewers snapping awake simultaneously during a commercial break and saying "For THIS we missed 'Three's Company?'"Similarly, if you're going to adhere to the plot (and its dialogue), it's generally a good idea to cast actors who can carry it off. The novel's short and fat, middle-aged (but extremely tough) protagonist happens to also be anonymous, all for a purpose; changing him into the tall and thin, dapper (but extremely sardonic) James Coburn and giving him a name like Hamilton Nash (sounds like Dashiell Hammett, get it? wink! wink!) may gain you a bit of star power, except that he hasn't a clue how to relate to his material.Equally to the point, if you decide to change the story's setting from San Francisco and the central California coast to New York City and some generic seashore locale, keep in mind that any number of Hammett partisans -- whose teeth are already set in terminal-grind mode by this point -- are going to expect you to have a very good reason for doing so.In fairness, it should be mentioned that all concerned appear to give it their best shot (Hector Elizondo, as small-town sheriff Ben Cotton, and Jason Miller, as Owen Fitzstephan, are both standouts) as this "event" lurches from situation to situation; unfortunately, best shots here have a tendency to fall short of the mark, rather like a trapeze artist who can never quite make that third midair somersault in time or a high-wire artist with chronic nosebleed. The end result is a traveling circus, gamely striking its tent and moving on but getting . . . you guessed it!

This confusing story begins like a movie you came into after it began.The charactors all knew each other before, and make reference to things we don't see that appear to have something to do with all the strange goings on.It involves a weird cult, a girl who is a drug addict and who may have killed her husband, and the detectives efforts to get the girl off drugs.Mostly it's forgettable and sometimes laughable.The stupidest mistake here is that the cast includes Jean Simmons and they made very poor use of her talents. She only had four scenes and only spoke in two of them (in one scene she is tied up on an altar and is in danger of becoming a human sacrifice).The film could have been better if they had made the female lead older and used Simmons in the part instead of in the supporting role. Even that however, could not have made this less confusing...just more watchable!