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OK - sorry for previous - I had written a huge, long response to Return and then stupidly screwed up and deleted it just as I was posting. Out of exhaustion I'll just quickly summarize:
I totally respect your opinion about Dracula - and I would agree that it is the most important horror film in American history. . . but I can't agree that its a masterpiece as a film-in-itself.
The opening act of Dracula sets up with thunder and wonder but then really lets down in the second and third acts. The sets are wooden and the shots are remarkably static (compare to the spanish language version shot on the same sets and one can see how much more dynamic and innovative they were in terms of cinematography). The acting has its moments - Van Sloan is consistently good as is Chandler and Lugos is in his own world - but much of it is either hammy (here I'd put Frye ) or awkwardly wooden (the rest of the cast).
For me, the easy comparison is to Frankenstein, which is much more sophisticated in terms of the visual and the narrative. I don't think Dracula can even begin to compare -as a film- to Whale's Frankenstein. But, that makes Dracula all the more intriguing - why did this film, which even contemporary critics did not embrace and found too stagey and disappointing, become the fountainhead from which American horror sprang?
(p.s. = thanks for the most intelligent discussion I've seen since I've been here).
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