Wald and Macaulay collaborated on scripts for Hollywood Hotel (1937); The Gay Impostors (1938) for Vallée; Garden of the Moon (1938); Brother Rat (1938), based on the hit play; and Hard to Get (1938) with Dick Powell.

Wald and Macaulay had both mostly worked on musicals but they had a big hit with the gangster film The Roaring Twenties (1939), with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, co-written with Robert Rossen.

They worked on Brother Rat and a Baby (1939) (uncredited); 3 Cheers for the Irish (1940), a comedy; Torrid Zone (1940), with Cagney and Ann Sheridan; Flight Angels (1940); Brother Orchid (1940); They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Bogart; Million Dollar Baby (1941), a comedy co written with Casey Robinson; Out of the Fog (1941) with Lupino, working with Rossen; Manpower (1941) with Raft, Edward G Robinson and Marlene Dietrich.

[1] Wald was associate producer on The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941), adapted by the Epsteins; All Through the Night (1942), with Bogart; Larceny, Inc. (1942) with Robinson; and Juke Girl (1942) with Sheridan and Ronald Reagan.

Wald was promoted to full producer, and soon established himself as one of the leading filmmakers on the lot: Across the Pacific (1942), with Bogart and director John Huston, written by Macaulay; George Washington Slept Here (1942) and The Hard Way (1943); he also contributed to the story of the latter, but had effectively given up writing.

Wald went on to produce Action in the North Atlantic (1943) with Bogart; Background to Danger (1943) with Raft; Destination Tokyo (1943) with Cary Grant and directed by Delmer Daves; In Our Time (1944) with Lupino; The Very Thought of You (1944) with Dennis Morgan and Eleanor Parker; Objective, Burma!

Wald produced The Unfaithful (1947) with Ann Sheridan and director Vincent Sherman; Possessed (1947) with Crawford; Dark Passage (1947) with Bogart and Lauren Bacall for Daves; and To the Victor (1948) with Morgan and Dves.

He produced a series of classic films: Key Largo (1948) with Bogart, Bacall and Edward G. Robinson; Johnny Belinda (1948), which won an Oscar for star Jane Wyman; and Adventures of Don Juan (1948) with Flynn.

Wald's credits then included One Sunday Afternoon (1949), with Morgan; John Loves Mary (1949) with Ronald Reagan; Flamingo Road (1949) with Crawford; Daves' Task Force (1949) with Gary Cooper; Always Leave Them Laughing (1949) with Milton Berle; and The Inspector General (1949) with Danny Kaye.

[1] At Columbia he produced Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) starring Rita Hayworth; Queen Bee (1955) with Crawford, directed by Ranald MacDougall; The Harder They Fall (1956), Bogart's last movie; and The Eddy Duchin Story (1957), a biopic with Tyrone Power and Kim Novak.

[citation needed] Jerry Wald, was a close friend of Joan Crawford in the forties, offering her many parts including the title role in Mildred Pierce, which he produced.

Jerry Wald not only produced Mildred Pierce, but also Humoresque (1946), considered one of the best performances of Crawford's career, Across the Pacific (1942), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), Possessed (1947), Flamingo Road (1949), The Damned Don't Cry (1950).