Women professionals in the movies almost invariably sacrificed their “femininity” and ultimately their desirability in the bargain for power. In Female, Ruth Chatterton is the head of a trucking company, no less, but what she sacrifices by day she makes up for with a vengeance by night. “For her Catherine the Great–like seductions of her handsome employees, she plays appropriate mood music-which nearly always turns out to be ‘Shanghai Lil'...There's nothing radically new in its super-efficient-businesswoman-tamed-by-love story...but somehow, through its speed and bare-bones concentration of plot, Female becomes something of a prototype of the genre. Michael Curtiz keeps it all moving so fast, constantly changing locales, rushing in new characters and rushing out the old (Miss Chatterton's discarded lovers are all transferred to the Montreal branch...), keeping the dialogue on a consistent level of blockbuster theatrics, it's incredible to realize that so much plot is covered in a mere sixty minutes” (William K. Everson).