Madame Bovary (1949 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Madame Bovary is a 1949 film adaptation of the classic novel by Gustave Flaubert. It stars Jennifer Jones, James Mason, Van Heflin, Louis Jourdan, Alf Kjellin billed as Christopher Kent, Gene Lockhart, Frank Allenby and Gladys Cooper. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli and produced by Pandro S. Berman, from a screenplay by Robert Ardrey based on the Flaubert novel. The music score was by Miklós Rózsa, the cinematography by Robert H. Planck and the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and Jack Martin Smith.
The film was a project of the MGM studios and Lana Turner was set to star, but when pregnancy forced her to withdraw, Jennifer Jones stepped into the title role. Production began in December of 1948 and the film premiered the following summer. The story of the adulterous wife who destroys the lives of many presented censorship issues with the Production Code. A plot device which structured the story around author Gustave Flaubert's obscenity trial was developed to placate the censors. The highlight of the film is an elaborately choreographed ball sequence set to composer Miklós Rózsa's lush film score.
The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration in 1950.
