Madame Bovary (1949)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Vincente Minnelli

Writers:

Gustave Flaubert (novel)
Robert Ardrey (writer)

Release Date:

23 January 1950 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

All she wanted was everything.

Plot:

A provincial doctor's wife's romantic illusions about life and social status lead her to betray her naive husband, take on lovers and run up ruinous debts.

Plot Keywords:

Doctor | Debt | Trial | Author | Lover

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Jennifer Jones	...	Emma Bovary
James Mason	...	Gustave Flaubert
Van Heflin	...	Charles Bovary
Louis Jourdan	...	Rodolphe Boulanger
Alf Kjellin	...	Leon Dupuis (as Christopher Kent)
Gene Lockhart	...	J. Homais
Frank Allenby	...	Lheureux
Gladys Cooper	...	Madame Dupuis
John Abbott	...	Mayor Tuvache
Harry Morgan	...	Hyppolite (as Henry Morgan)
George Zucco	...	Dubocage
Ellen Corby	...	Félicité
Eduard Franz	...	Rouault
Henri Letondal	...	Guillaumin
Esther Somers	...	Madame Lefrançois
Frederic Tozere	...	Pinard
Paul Cavanagh	...	Marquis D'Andervilliers
Larry Simms	...	Justin
Dawn Kinney	...	Berthe Bovary
Vernon Steele	...	Priest
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ed Agresti	...	Man (uncredited)
John Ardizoni	...	Lagandy (uncredited)
Florence Auer	...	Mme. Petree (uncredited)
Charles Bancroft	...	Man (uncredited)
Paul Bryar	...	Bailiff (uncredited)
Jeanine Caruso	...	Berthe Bovary, at 15 Months (uncredited)
David Cavendish	...	Man (uncredited)
Andre Charisse	...	Young Man (uncredited)
Fred Cordova	...	Guest (uncredited)
Gino Corrado	...	Village Official at Agricultural Show (uncredited)
George Davis	...	Innkeeper (uncredited)
Charles De Ravenne	...	Pimply-Faced Youth (uncredited)
Dickie Derrel	...	Urchin (uncredited)
Edith Evanson	...	Mother Superior (uncredited)
Jack George	...	Opera Conductor (uncredited)
Stuart Holmes	...	Guest (uncredited)
Teddy Infuhr	...	Nosey Boy at Rouault's home (uncredited)
Karl Johnson	...	Drunken Guest (uncredited)
Edward Keane	...	Presiding Judge (uncredited)
Victor Kilian	...	Speaker at agricultural show (uncredited)
Harold Krueger	...	Harelip Youth (uncredited)
Ann Kunde	...	Guest (uncredited)
Gracille LaVinder	...	Woman (uncredited)
Bert LeBaron	...	Young Man (uncredited)
Eula Morgan	...	Woman (uncredited)
Mayo Newhall	...	Man (uncredited)
Manuel París	...	Servant (uncredited)
Lon Poff	...	Guest (uncredited)
Constance Purdy	...	Mme. Foulard (uncredited)
Phil Schumacher	...	Guest (uncredited)
Jack Stoney	...	Guest (uncredited)
Helen St. Rayner	...	Opera Singer (uncredited)
Helen Thurston	...	Guest (uncredited)
Sailor Vincent	...	Guest (uncredited)

Directed by
Vincente Minnelli

Writing credits
Gustave Flaubert		(novel)
Robert Ardrey		(writer)

Produced by
Pandro S. Berman	....	producer

Original Music by
Miklós Rózsa

Cinematography by
Robert H. Planck		(as Robert Planck)

Film Editing by
Ferris Webster

Art Direction by
Cedric Gibbons
Jack Martin Smith

Set Decoration by
Richard Pefferle		(as Richard A. Pefferle)
Edwin B. Willis

Costume Design by
Walter Plunkett		(costumes: women)
Valles		(costumes: men)

Makeup Department
Jack Dawn	....	makeup artist
Larry Germain	....	hair stylist for Miss Jones
Sydney Guilaroff	....	hair stylist
Dotty Ponedel	....	makeup artist: preproduction tests (uncredited)

Production Management
Al Shenberg	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Joel Freeman	....	assistant director
Alfred Raboch	....	assistant director (as Al Raboch)

Art Department
Richard Pefferle	....	associate set decorator (as Richard A. Pefferle)

Sound Department
Standish J. Lambert	....	sound
Douglas Shearer	....	recording supervisor

Special Effects by
Warren Newcombe	....	special effects

Camera and Electrical Department
Tom Long	....	grip
Sam Manatt	....	still photographer (as S.M. Manatt)
Harkness Smith	....	camera operator

Music Department
Eugene Zador	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Jack Aldworth	....	script supervisor
Jack Donohue	....	choreographer

Production Companies

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Distributors

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1949) (USA) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1950) (France) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1950) (UK) (theatrical)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (1983) (USA) (VHS)

Runtime:

Argentina:130 min | USA:115 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

The Breen Office opposed the movie, saying that it had too many controversies and innuendo; everything from the makeup to the kissing scenes had be washed down a bit to pass the censors.

Quotes:

Gustave Flaubert: She had learned to be a woman for whom experience would always be a prison, and freedom would lie always beyond the horizon.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Some of the Best (1949)

The best of three

Films of great novels are usually light years away in terms of quality from their originals. There are of course a few exceptions, the David Lean Dickens adaptations for instance and recently a Neil Jordan version of Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair" that I much admired. Generally it is second rate literature, "Gone WIth the Wind" a prime example, that fares so much better. Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" has continued through the history and development of cinema and TV to exert its fascination on would-be translators, although it has to be admitted that it has generally proved elusive. One would have thought that it would have fared particularly well in the hands of outstanding French directors such as Renoir and Chabrol but their efforts to come to grips with Flaubert's masterpiece have ultimately to be judged as among their lesser works. There is quite a lot going for Jean Renoir's early 1933 version, not least the authentic Normandy exteriors shot with great affection, but technically the film shows its age. It is rather like a series of tableaux, some in themselves quite well done, but ultimately lacking a strong narrative thrust and sense of cohesion. Nevertheless I remember being more impressed with it than with Claude Chabrol's 1991 version which I found surprisingly cold and passionless. I admit I have only seen this once and my memory of it is far from clear, perhaps because it grabbed me so little at the time. It may seem rather preposterous to award the accolade for the best "Bovary" to Vincente Minnelli's Americanised 1949 MGM version with its studio mock-up of a French village that seems more of a Flanders lookalike and some location work clearly done in Californian woodland, but, in the absence of so little competition, I would have to plump for it as being certainly the most enjoyable. After all it has that quite exquisite beauty, Jennifer Jones, as the eponymous heroine, suffering and eventually dying as tenderly as only she can. My favourite memory from the film is her first appearance on the farm where Doctor Bovary is calling to tend to her sick father. There she is in a setting of all too believable rural squalor decked out in the most unbelievably opulent dress imaginable. If nothing else it makes Bovary's initial besottedness with her absolutely credible. Minnelli's is a rather sanitised adaptation. Okay to have the heroine die beautifully once the initial agony of taking poison has been established, but the inevitable outcome of a botched operation on a villager's clubfoot - amputation - is, unlike in the novel and other versions, evaded by the doctor's refusal to take on the medical challenge. It makes for rather more comfortable box-office. There are some beautifully done scenes including the almost obligatory inclusion in a Hollywood period piece of a ballroom sequence. The one here has the hedonistic movement that is everything we had come to expect from "The Great Waltz" onwards. There is also the heroine's wait, her bags fully packed in a windswept street after dark for the lover that never comes. Wyler did it rather better in "The Heiress" but Minnelli's has plenty of atmosphere. His version may be even further than its competitors from Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" but he invests it with enough passion and commitment to ensure it a small place in Hollywood history.