The Rainbow

Director Ken Russell returns to the D.H. Lawrence territory that had earlier served him well in Women in Love. Sammi Davis plays Lawrence's Welsh heroine Ursula Brangwen, daughter of a wealthy mine owner, who is first seen as a child given to literally chasing rainbows. Disappointed that she can never have the real thing, the older Davis seeks out figurative rainbows in the form of sexual fulfillment. Neither heterosexual nor homosexual affairs fully satisfy Davis, because no one lover can match the "ideal" the girl has created in her imagination. Davis' disappointment in the world is paralleled with the sorry lot of the wives of the local coal miners, who have adapted to their lives--something Davis can never do, will never do. Stately despite its raw subject matter, The Rainbow was filmed just before Russell's outrageous sword-and-sorcery fantasy Lair of the White Worm; since both films utilize many of the same cast members, the two pictures might make an astonishing double feature.