Revelling in the media attention he received on docking in New York, Lang took the train for California expecting to be greeted like the visionary who would save American cinema from the ravages of the Great Depression and the artistic torpor that had set in following the dual introduction of sound and the 1934 Production Code. However, Louis B. Mayer was wary of having hired another Erich von Stroheim or Josef Sternberg and he opted to keep Lang on a short leash, with the result that 18 months passed without him directing a single scene. He wasn't short of ideas, however, with his proposed projects including a remake of The Woman in the Moon; Tomorrow, an espionage thriller about a Russian spy battling the sinister Asiatic Committee; The Man Behind You, about a Jekyllesque doctor with a second ego; Hell Afloat, which was based on the fire aboard the SS Morro Castle off the New Jersey coast in 1934; and Passport to Hell, about a politician trying to clear his name of false corruption charges.
During this period of enforced leisure, Lang also passed on Whipsaw and His Brother's Wife, which were made by Sam Wood and WS Van Dyke
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