1944, Peters was admitted into Santa Monica Hospital for abdominal pain and underwent major surgery. Her recovery took several months, postponing the films' production indefinitely. Reports varied as to how much footage was shot; some reported as little as ten-day of filming, while others stated that the film was nearly completed. By the time that Peters had recovered in the summer of 1944, Dassin was on a voluntary leave from the studio, so Peters was instead assigned to Keep Your Powder Dry (originally announced as Women in Uniform) for director Edward Buzzell. When Dassin finally returned to work for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in mid-1945, Peters had undergone another series of surgeries (due to an accidental shotgun discharge on January 1, 1945), which put her in a wheelchair. Peter's character in Secrets in the Dark was to be rewritten as a paraplegic, but the film was instead permanently shelved. When Secrets in the Dark was first postponed in early April 1944, Dassin started acting in night plays at the Actors' Laboratory Theatre as part of the War Charities benefits. The first play in which he acted was Night Lodging, followed by The Lower Depths. In May 1944, Dassin teamed up with Arthur Lubin to set up the Soldier Shows Stock Company, a project to put on plays featuring wounded war veterans at Torney General Hospital in Palm Springs, California. In June 1944, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced that Dassin had been assigned to direct the company's 20th Anniversary film, Some of the Best. The five-reel picture was to include excerpts from prior Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films, spanning 1924–1943, along with wrap-around pieces starring Lewis Stone. Dassin, however, became weary of his directorial duties at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and asked Louis B. Mayer to be released from his exclusive contract. Mayer sternly refused, even after Dassin offered to sign a promissory document that he would never work for another Hollywood studio. In a later interview conducted in December 1946, Dassin revealed that he was ashamed of some of the directorial duties he was forced to accept while at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Dassin had hoped to return to work on the New York stage but instead took a thirteen-month voluntary hiatus from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, filling his time by reading books on the beach and working on local plays. On July 30, 1944, Dassin's wife Beatrice gave birth to their third child, daughter Julie. In November 1944, actor Ralph Bellamy approached Dassin to direct The Democrats,