These featured Mia May in leading roles and she regularly worked under her husband's direction in a number of melodramas like Tragedy of Love (1922/23) co-starring Emil Jannings.

Towards the end of the 1920s, May moved away from adventure films and produced more realist works, notable among them the World War I love-triangle Heimkehr (The Return Home) (1928) and the contemporary thriller Asphalt (1929).

During the early years of sound film he worked as a producer for Erich Pommer at Ufa then for different production companies in Germany, Austria and France directing a series of multilingual versions in German and French among those is Ihre Majestät die Liebe / Son altesse l'amour (1930) one of the best musical comedies of the Weimar Cinema.

His most notable works of this period were the Kay Francis vehicle Confession, a remake of the 1935 German film Mazurka, The House of the Seven Gables and The Invisible Man Returns (1940).

He also worked with the Dead End Kids during this period, helming two films, You're Not So Tough (1940) and Hit the Road (1941), despite constant friction with his juvenile delinquent cast members.

May's last film was the wartime comedy featuring Robert Mitchum in a small role, Johnny Doesn't Live Here Any More, made in 1944 by the King Brothers and released through Monogram Pictures.