Product Review

Madame Bovary (1949) (DVD)

Gustave Flaubert's scandalous, banned, classic novel comes to the screen, the story a beautiful French woman whose passion and will are far too great for her time--Madame Bovary. 1857, France. Young Emma (Jennifer Jones) marries an older widower (Van Heflin) to escape her family, but she soon becomes disillusioned with her marriage and her husband. Drawn first into a passionate, if chaste, relationship with young lawyer Leon Dupuis (Alf Kjellin), then a sexual relationship with an aristocrat Rodolphe Boulanger (Louis Jordan) and finally a desperate affair with Dupuis, Emma realizes that she may succeed in her adultery but she will never be able to escape the stifling prison of her time, class and sex. James Mason stars as the author, Gustave Flaubert, in an introduction and epilogue set during the author's obscenity trial. ...