The Dain Curse (1978 TV mini-series)

The Dain Curse is a U.S. television mini-series which originally screened on CBS in 1978. It comprises three feature-length episodes. James Coburn stars as private detective Hamilton Nash.

It is based on Dashiell Hammett’s second published novel, The Dain Curse. The novel was published in book form in 1929 but had been serialised in the Black Mask pulp magazine in 1928.

The TV retains the time setting of the novel and that is important. These events take place in 1928, before the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression. This is a Jazz Age story, not a Depression-era story.

The hero of the novel is known only as the Continental Op. He figures in two of Hammett’s novels and many of his short stories. In the TV mini-series he is given the name Hamilton Nash (and is played by James Coburn).

It’s worth pointing out that there’s a good reason that Hammett’s private eye stories have an air of authenticity. Hammett spent seven years as a private detective, working for the world’s most famous detective agency, the Pinkerton Detective Agency. That’s also why the hero of The Dain Curse is not a Philip Marlowe-style down-at-heel PI working alone out of a seedy office. Nash works for a very big agency and judging by his fancy clothes he is very well paid. It’s also why he works as part of a team of operatives.

If you’re not familiar with the novel you might think that they’ve added a lot of 70s elements such as dope addiction and the crazy religious cult, but that stuff is all in the novel. It’s easy to forget that drugs were a big thing in the 1920s and that wacky religious cults had been around since the late 19th century. And phoney mystics fleecing foolish rich people were a huge thing in the 1920s.

It starts as an insurance investigation. There was a burglary of some diamonds but the stones were small and of very poor quality and hardly worth stealing. The burglary occurred at the Leggett house. The daughter, Gabrielle (Nancy Addison), seems rather strange. The whole household is strange. Nash doesn’t think there was any burglary.

Then comes the first murder and the plot is soon getting quite complicated. The Leggetts all have odd mysterious murky pasts and the past is more important to them than the present. There are secrets. Big secrets.

Nash solves the case to everyone’s satisfaction but his own. He knows that the solution doesn’t add up. This is the sort of thing that really bothers him.

At which point we need to talk about Hamilton Nash because he is not your stock-standard PI. He works for a big agency jealous of its reputation for honesty and integrity and that suits Nash because he has ethics. He also has professional pride. He believes in doing his job properly and thoroughly.

He’s not surprised to discover that this case has in fact only just begun.

There’s a connection to an obviously phoney religious cult run by the mysterious slightly sinister Aaronia Haldorn (Jean Simmons) and her husband Joseph. Joseph doesn’t just claim to be God. He believes he is God.

Nash gets some advice from his old friend Owen Fitzstephan (Jason Miller), a colourful author of occult potboilers.

There are romantic triangles and romantic quadrangles, lots of betrayals and of course everyone is telling lies.

Money is a motivation for some of the players in this complicated but jealousy, lust and an obsessive desire to preserve secrets are bigger motivations.

Nash is in danger of getting emotionally entangled with Gabrielle which, given her morphine addiction and general craziness, may not be a good idea.

And then there’s the Dain Curse. A family curse going back centuries. Gabrielle has Dain blood.

And this is just the first episode! There are two more to come. With countless plot twists.

James Coburn’s star quality is clearly in evidence but he’s called upon to do some real acting here and acquits himself well. He bears little resemblance to Hammett’s Continental Op and it’s best to think of Hamilton Nash as essentially a new character devised for the TV production. What matters is that Coburn has plenty of charm and he doesn’t play Nash as a straightforward tough guy.

Nancy Addison does a fine job as Gabrielle. It’s a tricky part. We have to be sympathetic to her even though she’s exasperating and she has to keep us guessing as to how far Gabrielle can be trusted.

This was an expensive and lavish production and it looks terrific. The makers wanted a cinematic look and had major battles with the network over the issue but for the most part they got their way. It does look a lot more cinematic than typical American television productions of that era.

The problems with this mini-series are actually inherent in the source material. The novel was in fact four short stories cobbled together so it’s very episodic. 

The mini-series is therefore also very episodic. There’s no one clear central plot strand and overall there’s a bit too much plot.

Fortunately there’s enough wild stuff to keep things interesting and I enjoyed The Dain Curse a good deal. Highly recommended.

The Image Entertainment DVD release is still fairly easy to get hold of and don’t be put off by the fact that it’s DVD. It really looks very very nice. 

Most importantly the three episodes are complete and uncut (there was a heavily butchered version floating around at one time).