For the next decade, Ratoff directed comedies, musicals, crime dramas, war films, thrillers and swashbucklers—all solid but unspectacular fare in the wide range of genres then given to directors under contract. "Song of Russia" (1944), another love story between musical performers (Robert Taylor and Susan Peters) was set in Russia when the Nazi invasion begins. Ratoff had been lent out for this MGM job because the musical romance had become one of his specialties after his best-known work in Intermezzo. He actually collapsed near the end of shooting and had to be replaced by another emigre, Hungarian Laszlo Benedek. Taylor was a friendly witness for HUAC and its two writers were hauled before the committee, questioned and harassed. Ratoff's directing career in Hollywood never recovered and he returned to acting, playing his most famous role as the befuddled producer Max Fabian in "All About Eve".