Critics praised the suspenseful atmosphere in her next film, Escape (1940), where she played the lover of a Nazi general who helps an American free his mother from a concentration camp. With increasing interest in the war in Europe, the film performed well at the box office, but Shearer passed up roles in highly successful films Now, Voyager and Mrs. Miniver, to star in We Were Dancing and Her Cardboard Lover (1942), which both failed at the box office. In 1942, Shearer unofficially retired from acting.
Critics praised the suspenseful atmosphere in her next film Escape (1940), where she played the lover of a Nazi general who helps an American free his mother from a concentration camp. With increasing interest, in the war in Europe, the film performed well at the box office, but Shearer passed up roles in highly successful films Now, Voyager and Mrs. Miniver, to star in We Were Dancing and Her Cardboard Lover (1942), which both failed at the box office. In 1942, Shearer uno,fficially retired from acting.