Southern-born Dalton Reymond was a professor at Louisiana State University. There, in the mid-1930s, he directed budding opera star Frances Greer in a production of Carmen. He subsequently went to Hollywood to work as a set designer and technical advisor. The latter included, according to a New York Times article, "supervising the speech" of cast members of the motion picture Jezebel (1938). He is best-known, however, for his controversial treatment of the screenplay for Song of the South.