Based on the classic novel by Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary tells the tale of Emma Bovary, who is romantic by nature, and believes herself the equal of the heroines depicted in the romantic novels she reads. When she moves to a rural town in France, she finds herself utterly bored by country and small-town life. Although her husband is a good man, Emma has no respect for him. Eventually she takes a lover, and wants him to give up everything for her, so they can run away together—but he fails to appear on the day set for their elopement. She then finds solace in the arms of a third man, but when this affair also collapses, she has nothing left to live for. A great tragedy of French life and customs, effectively dramatized by Gaston Baty!