Well, I like MY subtextual take... that Larry Talbot is actually an embodiment of America at the dawn of the European war: strong, smart, practical, but relatively naive. The factors of the Old World converge upon him: the familial connection (he left, as did the original colonists)... treatment by most of the others as an outsider... the exotic Continental mystery with its colorful accouterments but an underlying (and infectious) streak of animal brutality... and his being gradually drawn into "becoming" a monstrous animal against his will.

Hey, it's a living.