Many details about the making of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" are in dispute and will probably remain unsettled due to the large number of people involved in the making of the film, many of whom have recalled it differently or dramatized their own contributions to its production. Production of the film was delayed about four or five months after the script was purchased. Pommer originally chose Lang as the director of "Caligari", and Lang even went so far as to hold preparatory discussions about the script with Janowitz, but he became unavailable due to his involvement with the filming of "The Spiders", so Wiene was selected instead. According to Janowitz, Wiene's father, a successful theatre actor, had "gone slightly mad when he could no longer appear on the stage", and Janowitz believed that experience helped Wiene bring an "intimate understanding" to the source material of "Caligari".