That hair! That cape! Those teeth! Who doesn't feel aflutter when Dracula's around.

Dracula has remained a favorite throughout the decades. He's the Chanel of costumes: You can never go wrong wearing Dracula for Halloween.

And in our vision of the night stalker, it's hard not to imagine the scratchy film from 1931 that first brought the count into our consciousness. And that Dracula is Bela Lugosi.

Or is it?

It's been 75 years since Lugosi first acquired eternal life in the original film adaptation of Bram Stoker's famous novel. Though it was Lugosi who showed American audiences how a vampire was supposed to act, look and speak, it was Carlos Villarias who introduced the iconic character to Latin audiences in the Spanish-language version of the film, which Universal simultaneously produced on the same set using a different cast.

OLE!

The Spanish version directed by George Melford is technically ahead of Tod Browning's original and offers far more creative camerawork. Melford's version also possesses a greater power of sexual suggestion than its conservative counterpart, using the lead actresses' facial expressions, which imply that they would like Dracula to do a lot more than suck their blood, whenever they fall under his spell.

The Spanish-language version adheres to the same script as Browning's version, but in Melford's hands the dialogue is more developed. As a whole, the acting in the Spanish version is stronger, with the exception of Villarias, whose bulging eyes and "Oh no, I just crapped my pants" look whenever he tries to be menacing makes him anything but.

WORKING DAY AND NIGHT

The Spanish crew did have an advantage.

According to actress Lupita Tovar Kohner, who played Eva (Mina's counterpart in the American version), the English cast would come in at 8 am., and the Spanish cast would arrive on the set in the evening and work throughout the night.

"Apparently what happened was the initial crew -- Browning's crew -- would shoot these sequences -- (and) the second crew -- the Spanish crew -- would look at them and say to themselves, 'We can do better than that,' and they would go and they would do better,'" film historian Lokke Heiss says in the documentary "The Road to Dracula."

FANCY CAMERAWORK

Proof of this can be found in the camerawork, which is far more fluid in the Spanish version.

When Renfield (Pablo Alvarez Rubio) first enters the castle in Transylvania, the camera pans left and then up the stairs until it lands on Dracula. It puts us in Renfield's shoes and allows us to share in his fear as he gets his first glimpse of the notorious count. In the English version we get a brief side glance and then a long static shot of Dracula walking down the stairs with Renfield in the foreground, which lessens the dramatic effect of the important scene.

A little later, Melford's camera work again proves more effective as Dracula shows Renfield to his room. The scene opens inside the bedroom, with a tight shot of the door as it begins to open by itself. As the pair enters, we get a sense of Renfield's anxiety as the camera slowly starts to pull back to reveal the depth and eeriness of the room. The shot ends up inside an alcove, which nicely frames the scene.

By contrast, the sequence is much more stagnant in the original. The scene begins with a long shot of the pair inside the room. The camera is stationary and the quick, successive cuts are disorienting and keep us from getting a real sense of the expanse of the haunting room.

A REVEALING DIFFERENCE

Another thing that Browning's version prevents us from seeing is cleavage. Melford's lead actresses, particularly Tovar, were allowed to flaunt it a bit more than their American counterparts. In one scene Tovar wears a nightgown that exposes her healthy bosom. In the English version, the nightgown worn by Mina (Helen Chandler) is not as generous.

"The dresses that Helen Chandler wore were all covered up," Tovar says in an introduction to the Spanish version recently released on a commemorative DVD. "What they gave me was what you would call sexy."

Melford again builds sexual tension during Dracula's unexpected visit to the Seward home.

Villarias' Dracula takes Eva's hand and kisses it more than once. And when she excuses herself, he follows her. Again there is hand contact, and the glance they exchange brims with sexual energy. Lugosi's Dracula is a bit more reserved in his approach to the ladies. Not even when he first meets Mina and Lucy (Frances Dade) does he offer a handshake.

VERY EMOTIONAL

"We Latins have a different way of expressing ourselves, we're very emotional," says Tovar.

When Van Helsing confronts Dracula with a mirror attached to a cigarette box, the two Draculas handle the situation differently. Villarias smashes it to pieces with a swing of his cane. Lugosi merely swats it out of his adversary's hands.

Still, despite Villarias' fiery performance, it is Lugosi who made for a more convincing Dracula. His halted speech and pronounced vocal inflections, due to his thick Hungarian accent, set the standard for what Dracula should sound like. While there have been countless other actors -- Frank Langella, Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman -- who have assumed the role since Lugosi, none has managed to transcend his image.

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Jaime Holguin is an asap reporter in New York. He doesn't want to suck your blood.

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