The Return of Dracula

It's the late fifties.

The last Dracula film Universal put out was Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein. Now, on the theater marquee, it reads "The Return of Dracula."

But it's not a Universal movie. Instead of castles and fog, it's set in smalltown America, Carleton, California, where the Mayberry family is expecting a cousin to visit from Romania.

Of course, Dracula, on the run from vampire hunters, has taken the place of the cousin.

Now, taking into account the political atmosphere of the times, an Eastern European infiltrating Anytown, USA to menace our virginal schoolgirls makes for a subtle piece of Cold-War cinema fun.

In fact, The Return of Dracula owes more to Hitchcock's Shadow of A Doubt and Orson Welles' The Stranger, with a touch of Leave it to Beaver thrown in for good measure.

Amazingly, this gem was followed up about a month after it's release with another return of Dracula, Hammer's The Horror Of Dracula.