A treatment that was actually faithful to the novel--a cynical look at social climbing in the petit bourgeois French--wouldn't make Jennifer Jones look lovely and sympathetic, and Heaven knows, the beautiful young star must have a halo. So Emma is portrayed as a hopeless romantic, understandably in love with pretty things, who tries to love her husband, actually wants a child (the novel's heroine was indifferent to children), and generally tries her best to be good, but is betrayed by her own passions. She is redeemed as she dies (beautifully, of course). Van Heflin is a much more articulate and intelligent Charles than the clunking doofus Flaubert created, and Rodolphe was thick-skinned and callous in a way that Hollywood would never permit Louis Jourdan to be. So this version would have satisfied as a forties chick flick, all costumes and heaving bosoms, but it really bears very little relation, except for a few script lines, to the harsh and brilliant novel. Such a cynical view of a woman in movies was really not possible at the time. The world is still waiting for the real cinematic Emma Bovary.
Review of Madame Bovary
