The Rainbow Jacket

Bill Owen had just starred for Dearden & Relph in a stark black & white drama about boxing called 'The Square Ring', and Ealing presumably felt the need to lighten up a bit for their next film shot largely on location in immaculate Technicolor by Otto Heller; hence the title.

A subplot concerns money owed by Owen to a loan shark played by an unbilled Bernard Lee (also unbilled are David Hemmings, and Katie Johnson in an amusing cameo), one of whose goons cuts Owen's lip with a beer glass, thus serving to remind us that this is still the Britain of ration books and spivs. But the subplot simply prolongs the film without actually making it any more interesting.

Seventh-billed Honor Blackman as Edward Underdown's wife looks ravishing in Technicolor, and in jodhpurs provides some Bond Girl glamour, but is largely absent from the second half of the film.