Of Dashiell Hammett’s five novels, four inspired an outburst of films: three versions of “The Maltese Falcon,” two versions of “The Glass Key,” six “Thin Man” films and a TV series, and several movies inspired by “Red Harvest.”
It’s no surprise that “The Dain Curse” was saved for last, as even some admirers label it an incomprehensible novel. CBS took up the cause in 1978 with a 5-hour, three-episode miniseries, thus ending the curse of hesitancy.
You might think the way for writer Robert W. Lenski to bring this unusually structured novel to the screen would be to make adjustments, but he smartly adapts the plot straight-up. The major difference might irk some readers at first blush: The Continental Op gets a name – Hamilton Nash – and now works for the Dickerson Detective Agency instead of the Continental Detective Agency.
“The Dain Curse” (1978)
CBS, three-episode miniseries
Director: E.W. Swackhamer
Writer: Robert W. Lenski, based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett
Stars: James Coburn, Jason Miller, Nancy Addison
The latter point is disappointing, but I understand why the Op can’t go nameless, and the play on Hammett’s name is clever, especially since James Coburn – helped by hairstyle and mustache — resembles the author. While I pictured a blockier Op in my reading, Coburn is excellent in the role, nailing the delivery of quips and voiceovers.
Insight into the inner Op
“Dain Curse” features on-point casting around Coburn, including Jason Miller (“The Exorcist”) as Nash’s author friend Owen, Nancy Addison (resembling Ally Sheedy) as the beautiful but “cursed” Gabrielle, Tom Bower (an outstanding character actor from “Die Hard 2” and “Roswell”) as San Francisco police chief O’Gar, olden-days movie star Jean Simmons (“So Long at the Fair”) as cult-church leader Aaronia Haldorn, Brent Spiner (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”) as an illusionist technician, and Hector Elizondo (“Monk”) as Quesada sheriff Ben.
Lenski and director E.W. Swackhamer prove this less-celebrated novel translates well to screen drama, because it’s the most emotional Op story, what with his friend Owen and a possible love interest in Gabrielle. The series doesn’t sacrifice the office banter with The Old Man (Paul Stewart) and fellow operatives Mickey (Malachy McCourt) and Dick (Clarence Felder), but Lenski probes into the cost of this work. He even writes Nash-less scenes such as Mickey and Dick wondering if they should’ve been baseball pitchers or music conductors.
I can imagine Coburn and this cast nicely transitioning to a full Continental Op series, although unfortunately that was never intended. So “The Dain Curse” ends up being the most direct Op portrayal with one exception, when Christopher Lloyd portrayed the unnamed Op in a 1995 episode of “Fallen Angels,” adapting the short story “Fly Paper.”
The production designers capture 1928 in every way, assisted by a jaunty brass score from Charles Gross. Swackhamer finds a middle ground between the novel’s pavement-pounding and the emotional drama that’s definitely in the novel, although Hammett keeps it more restrained.
A strong scene from episode three encapsulates Nash’s view of himself. He monologs to Gabrielle about how at his age he prefers to recognize feelings but not discuss them. Gabrielle takes it – or perhaps pretends to take it (Addison has a twinkle in her eye) – as Nash pretending to love her in order to help her through her morphine addiction. It’s “Curse’s” respectable equivalent of the famous Bogart closing monolog in “Falcon” in the way it’s a human thesis statement.
An appropriately long-standing curse
But Swackhamer and Lenski aren’t out to create a soapy emotional tragedy; they have a good feel for Hammett’s vibe as Nash investigates a diamond theft that leads to a suicide that leads to a religious cult that leads to a wedding that leads to a small town. Gabrielle’s addiction is the connective thread, and murders are a running tally. At one point, O’Gar says “Let me get this straight,” and Nash replies “Good luck.”
The more time I spend with “Dain Curse,” the more I understand the plot’s complexity is not a failing by Hammett; the ex-Pinkerton detective intended to make it complex, to show that real-world cases aren’t so tidy. The missing-diamonds case is closed in episode one – officially. But not all the questions have been answered. Luckily, the agency gets hired for services that keep them connected to the story threads, so after 5 hours we find out Gabrielle’s fate and the impetus behind the piled-up bodies.
Five hours is the right length to tell this story. Make sure to order the unedited DVD, and not the 2-hour chop-job VHS; by all reports it’s incomprehensible, and I believe it. Lenski understands Hammett’s novel can’t be truncated.
That having been said, many scenes and sequences are too leisurely by multiple standards: 1, today’s shorter attention spans, and 2, the bitten-off efficiency of Hammett’s prose. Granted, a case can be made that “Dain Curse” should take its time: The Twenties may have been Roaring, but it was also a time when sleuths took their hats off indoors and engaged in start-to-finish conversations without rushing off.
If you’re looking to soak up Hammettian detection in an unrushed journey through city streets, a weird church and rural backwoods, “The Dain Curse” is a great choice. Given that it’s – for now — the only opportunity to do a deep screen dive into the Op, that makes it worth treasuring even more.
Sleuthing Sunday reviews the works of Agatha Christie, along with other new and old classics of the mystery genre.