review for Women in the Wind on AllMovie

A "B" movie with an "A" list star, Women in the Wind is remembered -- if it is remembered at all -- as being the film by which Kay Francis finally fulfilled her contentious contract with Warner Brothers and bid the studio adieu. Although the basic setting -- a "powder puff derby" featuring women aviators -- is more or less on the novel side, there's nothing new or interesting about the strictly by the numbers screenplay that Albert E. DeMond and Lee Katz have devised. However, director John Farrow doesn't seem to care that he's working with overly-familiar material. Farrow imbues the story with a very decent amount of honesty and manages to make even the more clichéd sequences at least somewhat gripping and occasionally very effective. For her part, Francis is in very fine form. This may be a comedown for her, but she plays the part with all the commitment and emotion that it requires and lends a considerable amount of star quality to the proceedings. William Gargan is only so-so as the most prominent man around the picture, but Sheila Bromley is wickedly good and Eve Arden a delight.