Raft was one of many Warners names who appeared in "Stage Door Canteen" (1943). He was reportedly working on a play based on his life with W. R. Burnett called "Hell's Kitchen". He finally returned to filming at Warners with the espionage thriller "Background to Danger" (1943), a film intended to capitalize on the success of "Casablanca" (Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre were in support – Raft and Lorre got into a fistfight on set.). In November 1942, Raft bought himself out of his Warners contract in order to do "Hell's Kitchen" on stage. He ended up never doing the play on stage.