After Cain's novel was released, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. expressed interest in the property, but Warner Bros. quickly rejected the story, fearful that any attempt to get a screen story out of it would end in disaster. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased the rights to make a movie adaptation a full twelve years prior to the film's release. They were dissuaded from moving forward with the project earlier because of fears that its themes of adultery and murder would run afoul of the Motion Picture Production Code that began to be rigorously enforced not long after they had acquired the rights. The studio finally decided to proceed with the film in 1944, upon observing the success of Paramount's film adaptation of Cain's novella "Double Indemnity", which included much the same moral taboos.