Madame Bovary

Vincente Minnelli’s 1949 adaptation of the Flaubert novel, scripted by Robert Ardrey, is awkwardly framed by an account of Flaubert (James Mason) on trial for his morals, and the overfilled production seems at times to be much more MGM than Minnelli. Jennifer Jones and Van Heflin play Emma and Charles Bovary, and Louis Jourdan and Christopher Kent are two of her adulterous lovers. Minnelli pulls off an impressive ball sequence, and Miklos Rozsa did the score, but this is otherwise a typical MGM interment of a classic. 115 min. (JR)

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