Director Ken Russell returns to the works of D H Lawrence with this prequel to his 1969 adaptation of Women in Love and, at least in fits and starts, to his best form. The film does, though, suffer from typical Russellian excesses, especially in the nude scenes, and from a rather strained central performance by Sammi Davis as Ursula. More relaxed portrayals come from Amanda Donohoe, as her lesbian seducer, and inevitably from Glenda Jackson as her mother, not given quite sufficient screen time to walk off with the film. The most successful sequences are those set in junior teacher Davis's first school, a veritable workhouse of a place presided over with Dickensian intensity by Jim Carter. Particularly effective is the scene where Davis's worm turns and literally gets up off the floor to thrash a recalcitrant troublemaker within an inch of his life. The music by Carl Davis and Technicolor photography by Billy Williams catch the required mood exactly - often more successfully than Russell himself.


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