Dracula is the best of the Universal monster classics.

I think he is used most effectively in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

ditto for the wolfman

The musical score is so good. Good creepy suspense music for the monster stuff.

Heard that the Spanish language version was even better.

It has some good things about it, including more camera movements, more showing off of the sets, and a different take on Renfield. (Also, I think Lupita Tovar is much more attractive than Helen Chandler, though their performances are about even.)

On the whole, though, I can’t think of anything I find better, filmmaking-wise. As Ack says, the ritzy camerawork is kinda distracting, especially as much of it is poorly executed. Some of the staging is worse—e.g., in the English version Dracula stands higher than Renfield on the stairs when they meet, making him seem more in control, whereas in the Spanish they’re on the same level.

The biggest problem with the Spanish version, though, is that its Dracula and Van Helsing are just plain terrible.

Do compare and contrast the versions for yourself, though; it’s fun to watch both.

It wasn't Lugosi? So that Spanish version is not the same movie then. Lugosi is the iconic Dracula.

Producer Carl Laemmle, Jr.'s original intention was to use Stoker's novel as source material for the movie but that would have been a budget buster for Universal Studio which was already financially wobbly.  The second choice was to adapt the successful Broadway play of 1927, in effect turning the project into a drawing room fantasy/mystery. 

In need not have completely sunk the film had not Tod Browning blown every opportunity to open up the play to the motion picture format. Lost were all those wonderful scenes from the novel that made it one of the sensations of macabre literature. 

Karl Freund's superb photography and prowling camera made the most of the Charles D. Hall's eerie Castle Dracula, but when the action was transferred to Dr. Seward's sanitarium in London, all inventiveness was cast aside in favor of following the stage play. 

Bela Lugosi (not the first choice to play the Count) and Edward Van Sloan (both of whom had starred on Broadway) with the unforgettable Dwight Frye were the towering figures who saved the film version from becoming just another Universal programmer. 

There was another consideration, too, that had executives at Universal worried. Dracula would be the first talking horror movie and there was great concern that audiences confronted with supernatural creatures speaking dialogue, would find the whole affair ridiculous and laugh at the picture. 

It was a huge gamble that paid off. Despite their concerns that watered down the project, Dracula is a genuine screen classic that paved the way for monster mayhem that continues to this day.

The fact that we are still discussing the movie 90 years after it was released is testament to its enduring popularity and to the mystical charm of Bela Lugosi whose image is indelibly fused with the character he so effectively created.  

It may not the best of the Universal classics, but  it is arguably the most important.
  

   

David Manners was pretty useless just like in the Mummy.

Oh, certainly it was a template for limiting the action to the sanitarium, but they really aren’t alike, in my opinion. Yes, Van Helsing’s dialogue is endless—and poorly written at that. I find the film’s dialogue much better written.

“Flies? Flies? Poor, puny things. Who’d want to eat flies?”

“You do, you loony!”

“Not when I can have nice fat spiders!”