THERE will be no pot of gold for “Finian’s Rainbow” on Broadway next season.

Producer Rodger Hess announced yesterday he was pulling the plug on the revival, which had been scheduled to open in Los Angeles this summer prior to a New York run in the fall.

Hess said he was unable to complete the financing on the show, which was budgeted at “just north of $5 million.”

He was short about $1.5 million, he told The Post.

“I think there is still some lingering resistance to the show’s racial overtones,” he added.

Although it contains one of Broadway’s finest scores, the 1947 “Finian’s Rainbow” has long been considered unrevivable because of a scene in which a Southern politician is struck by lightning and turned into a step-and-fetch-it black man.

At the time, the scene was considering a daring satire on racial prejudice.

But, concerned that the scene and other aspects of the show might seem patronizing today, Hess hired bookwriter Peter Stone to rework the script. He also hired noted black actor Ossie Davis to vet the changes.

“We actually made the scene a lot tougher,” Hess said. “We

didn’t shy away from the issue at all.”

The revised “Finian’s Rainbow” received strong reviews during engagements in Miami and Cleveland last year.

But another problem for the show was the lack of a Broadway theater.

“There are so many shows circling New York right now, I felt like Sisyphus in my attempts to get a theater,” Hess said. “We were never No. 1 on anybody’s list.”