Madame Bovary 1949

MGM's 1949 'Madame Bovary' is wildly erratic and highly watchable.

The Vincente Minnelli-directed 1949 version of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is fascinating, but wildly erratic, much like the heroine herself.

The huge hurdles for the movie-makers with this take on the once-scandalous novel of a French housewife are never satisfactorily resolved: telling a story that would satisfy audiences, critics—and censors; movie-making with more post-war modern realism, and less from the past era’s style; and bolstering a leading lady who lacked confidence in her acting ability.

I never realized how James Mason sounded like his own best hammy imitation!

Some critics have cited the MGM treatment of Madame Bovary as anti-Emma, claiming that the studio framed the story within the censors’ rule that movie sinners must be punished by the last reel. I disagree. There are plenty of instances in the movie that defends Emma as trapped by her role of a woman, in male-dominated society. I have not read the book, but this adaptation posits that her childish ideas of life arise from her sheltered upbringing as a small town farm girl. When Emma attempts to act on them as an adult woman, the results are tragic. Director Minnelli deserves credit for a reasonably faithful rendition of Madame Bovary, filmed in an era when studios didn’t particularly care about fidelity—to a book, at least. In case you don’t get the message that Madame Bovary is great art and not scandalous trash, there’s a prologue and an epilogue that bookends the trial, which in turn bookends the movie. The idea of portraying author Gustave Flaubert on trial, to defend the decency of MGM’s Madame Bovary, must have seemed like a brilliant idea to offset showbiz censors. However, after James Mason's sonorous speechifying at the trial, we’re treated to his pompous narration that’s so intrusive that it’s comical. You’re relieved when he finally shuts up half way through.

The eternal triangle: Madame Bovary, the suave French playboy, and Mr. Bovary, the dull doctor. Guess what happens next?

This 1949 version of Madame Bovary was one of Metro's 25th silver anniversary movies, but in reality, it was their last hurrah as Hollywood’s greatest studio. Like other MGM takes on the classics about modest folk with only proximity to wealth, the stars of Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, and Madame Bovary still wear improbably lavish costumes and live in “cozy” luxury. Jennifer Jones sports gowns by Walter Plunkett, famed for his Scarlett O’Hara designs for David O. Selznick’s Gone with the Wind. Director Minnelli, despite his own love of glamour, at least attempted to give Emma's rustic life some genteel grit, but was thwarted by MGM.

Just a simple French farm girl making an omelette for the visiting doctor.!

In her first scene, when Emma is cooking breakfast, I burst out laughing. After a stormy night with rain seeping into the country kitchen, there is Jones as Emma, looking utterly pristine. Emma’s morning wear is a gigantic gown, with a huge decorative rose, as she delicately makes an omelette for visiting doctor Charles Bovary (Van Heflin.)

So it goes, with each scene, as Jones swans around in a gown or cape even more lavish and absurd than the last. How much more dramatic would it have been if Emma actually dressed like a country doctor’s wife, and finally gets to fulfill her dream at the Marquis’ ball, swathed in her soiree-stopping, snowy white confection.

Emma is encouraged to live large by the sinister shopkeeper!

Madame Bovary is one of those studio system era movies that are a mish mash of accents—American, British, and one actual Frenchman! Van Heflin is sympathetic as Charles Bovary, the benign and bewildered husband, though he is directed to play the drunken hubby at the ball very broadly, where he bursts Emma’s romantic bubble. The supporting cast, though playing archetypes, offer skillful portrayals. Ellen Corby, Grandma Walton herself, plays Emma’s long-suffering maid. I was puzzled that the great Gladys Cooper (Now, Voyager) has just one scene, making me wonder if a subplot had been cut out of the final film. Louis Jourdan plays yet another charming, smarmy French playboy, who helps lead the heroine to ruin.

Ultimately, Madame Bovary is all about Emma and the actress who plays her. There are a bevy of Madame Bovarys, all have their merits, but the Vincente Minnelli version is still the most famous. This is a bit surprising, since MGM’s Madame Bovary was a flop at the box office. Originally, Lana Turner was offered the role of Emma. This could have been an apt choice, as Turner was a romantic whose shallow outlook created as much disaster in her own life, as Emma Bovary did in hers. Lana thought the script dull and turned it down, and found out she was pregnant, as well. Minnelli was relieved, as he felt Turner’s notoriety would attract more attention from censors, and that an actress with a more respectable screen image would be a better choice.

Lana: "No, Jen, YOU play 'Madame Bovary!' You'll win a second Oscar!'

Enter Jennifer Jones as Emma. Never mind that Jones’ marriage and family with Robert Walker was wrecked when Gone with the Wind producer David O. Selznick set his sights on Jennifer. Or four years later, Selznick was still haggling with his current wife over the end of their marriage. In fact, it was during Madame Bovary’s production that Irene Selznick was granted a divorce. Ultimately, image is everything in Hollywood, and Jones was the dream girl of super productions like Song of Bernadette and Since You Went Away. Ethereal Jennifer Jones as Emma Bovary therefore took the onus off playing a scandalous character.

Jennifer Jones is one of Hollywood's most puzzling personalities. Jones grew up in a theatrical family, who owned a chain of movie theaters. She and first hubby Robert Walker were aspiring actors together. Yet, friend and co-star Joan Fontaine said of working with Jones on her last big movie, 1962’s Tender is the Night, even at that late date, acting “was a kind of torture” for Jennifer.  Jones is an anomaly among performers who grew up surrounded by showbiz—Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis—who lived for the limelight. And there are many stars that are shy off-stage, but who have brash personas. Jennifer Jones seemed a bit like Marilyn Monroe, both seeking and repelling stardom. Some critics of Jones have questioned the “shy” Jennifer, claiming it was an act to cover her ambition. To me, her reclusive nature and increasing discomfort on-screen seemed to indicate that Jennifer was not pretending. And yet Jones aspired to stardom, or she wouldn’t have broken up her family for the siren call of superstardom that Selznick promised.

Portrait of Jennifer, as Madame Bovary, dressed to the nines.

Though he technically had nothing to do with this Madame Bovary, David Selznick peppered everyone involved with his famous memos—all about how to bring out the best in Jennifer Jones. Like so many powerful Hollywood men, Selznick was obsessed with his star, and determined to make her into Hollywood’s greatest superstar. Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst attempted the same with Marion Davies. Davies was a showgirl with a natural flair for comedy, but Hearst’s desire was to make her a great dramatic actress. Instead, they made a string of big budget flops that made Marion a punch line. Film contemporaries and historians later said that Davies might have had a more interesting and relaxed career if Hearst had just butted out. And many film folk and critics felt the same in regard to Selznick and Jones.

Jones’ ambivalence is apparent in many of her movies, which is why movie fans and critics are still wildly divided over Jennifer’s abilities as an actress. As Emma Bovary, Jones gives off a jittery intensity throughout, which serves her character well. Jennifer is also wildly uneven as the country girl who longs for romance and riches. Jones can be subtly in tune with Emma in one scene, studio era “dramatic” in the next, and feverishly unnerving after that. Even here, critics and audiences were starting to notice Jones’ nervous tics, especially her tendency to grimace during dramatic scenes.

Every time Emma embraces a new dream—a new home, a baby, a lover, or even a ball gown—Jennifer makes the pronouncement with a fixed, wild stare as if she's playing the beatific Bernadette again, seeing visions. Jennifer seems most comfortable in her love scenes, luxuriating in her romantic fantasy. Yet, as the desperate Emma calling on her former lover for financial help, Jones is theatrically obvious, and therefore, not especially sympathetic. Finally, as Emma on her death bed, after swallowing gobs of arsenic, Jones dies a realistically painful death. 

Jones as Emma, facing her ruin. Jennifer reminds me of Kim Cattrall here.

Perhaps it is Jennifer’s lack of confidence and the inability to create empathy for a basically unsympathetic character that makes Jones' Emma Bovary off putting. Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor often played passionate women who did foolhardy things (off-screen, too!) but they always retained audience sympathy, especially from female fans. Leigh, a few years before, or Taylor, a decade later, could have easily played Emma. I think MGM’s Ava Gardner might have made a fine Emma. Gardner was a small town farm girl who came to Hollywood, where her dreams turned to disillusion, too. However, Ava was about as insecure about her talent as Jones.

'Madame Bovary' comes alive in the famous waltz scene. This is one of director Vincente Minnelli's best scenes on film.

Wildly uneven as Jones is, Jennifer still has her moments. For this Madame Bovary, the famed ballroom scene is where everything comes together. Jennifer Jones, who looks lovely throughout, is especially fetching in her gauzy, snow-white gown, with black feathers across the bosom. Surrounded by admirers, Scarlett O’ Hara-style, Emma takes a breather between dances. Jourdan as Rodolphe makes his move, the suave stud ready to sweep Mrs. Bovary off her feet. Emma goes from Cinderella to belle of the ball, and this scene is the perfect moment: the increasingly giddy waltz, the camera swirling along with Emma, surrounded by aristocrats, in the arms of a handsome man, waiters who smash windows with chairs when she exclaims that she can’t breathe, and Emma Bovary’s romantic daydreams momentarily come true.

Jones’ other big scene in Bovary is when Emma plans to run off with Rodolphe. Waiting for a stagecoach on a dark, windy night, Jennifer’s intensity conveys Emma’s yearning to escape her small town life. As the stagecoach comes closer into the village, the horses’ hoof beats become louder—symbolizing Emma’s heart pounding? The stagecoach looms into view…and then passes by, followed by a huge close-up of Emma screaming, powerfully portrayed by Jones. Emma, defeated, returns to her home and husband. Charles is waiting and so is a basket of fruit, from Rodolphe, along with a farewell note. Jones’ reaction to her lovers’ kiss off is eerily catatonic.

Emma Bovary's romantic dreams go up in flames. Jones with Van Heflin as Charles Bovary.

Looking at Jennifer Jones’ career in terms of hits is bizarrely skewed. Jennifer starred in eight bonafide blockbusters: Song of Bernadette, Since You Went Away, Love Letters, and Duel in the Sun in the 1940s. Then in the '50s, there were The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, and the critically panned but commercial A Farewell to Arms. Finally, Jones literally went out with a blaze of glory in 1974’s The Towering Inferno. Nearly none of these movies hold up today.  After those films, Jones’ box office stand takes a huge dip when looking at her other films like Portrait of Jennie, Carrie, We Were Strangers, Tender is the Night, as well as Madame Bovary. All were box office duds. The films that have won her cult status were financial flops too, but got her good notices, like Cluny Brown, Beat the Devil, and Indiscretion of an American Housewife. I find her appealing both as the saintly Good Morning, Miss Dove and as the trashy bayou babe in Ruby Gentry—again, not big hits. In Jones’ defense, the movies that stars are most remembered for aren’t always their biggest hits, and Jennifer’s work is worth exploring. Happy hunting though, because Jennifer Jones' career is checkered, to say the least.

Bette as a bitchy Madame Bovary!

Here's a fascinating coincidence: the same year as Jennifer Jones played Emma Bovary, Bette Davis ended her Warner Brothers contract playing a modern day version of Bovary in Beyond the Forest. Having just seen Madame Bovary for the first time, I was shocked at how much Forest author Stuart Engstrand ripped off the Flaubert classic. Seriously, Beyond the Forest is pretty much a replay of Madame Bovary in modern dress. And Bette's character Rosa Moline is just a mean girl version of Emma Bovary. Like Emma, Rosa is also married to a doctor, lives for luxury, looks down on her fellow townspeople, takes a rich lover, humiliates her husband, berates her maid, and dies a slow, painful death. The only thing Emma doesn't do is shoot a porcupine and a boozy tattletale!

The best way to watch this Madame Bovary is to ignore or enjoy its contradictions. Or maybe watch Jones’ Emma as a double feature with Bette’s bitchy broad version of Bovary!

Let's leave Emma Bovary on a happy note, the belle of the ball, and surrounded by admiring men!