the end???

I just saw the film and - having seen the 30's version - I waited for the transformation at the end, and felt a bit puzzled when there was a slight, but not definitive change in her facial features, and nothing was made of it.
Since this is NOT a very subtle film, my guess is that it was originally filmed with a dramatic twist at the end where Andrew changes back to human, but Maria back to animal, giving the film a dreadful ending. Then, perhaps because of studio pressure to give the film a happy ending, the idea was scrubbed. But of course they also needed to show Maria at the end and not just Andrew shouting, and the editors might have thought that if they just showed a quick glimpse of her crying face, the audience wouldn't notice the changes.
It does seem from the discussion on the stairs between Maria and Andrew that the issue of her being an animal was at some point a plot device, especially as the question of her origin remains unsolved throughout the whole movie. But since nothing else is made of it during the film - and her role as the enigmatic young woman seems to be completely forgotten about after her first two appearances (she is then reduced to mere eye-candy), it does feel as if some parts of the film were edited out so that she could remain human.
It is worth mentioning that there is no definitive answer found in the book, as no female character, neither a Maria nor a "panther woman" was present in H.G. Wells' novel, but rather it was a character made up the the screenwriters of the first film adaptations. Curiously enough, the panther-woman has survived in one form or the other in all the four film adaptations that have come since, although in Eddie Romero's 1959 film Terror is a Man, she is changed into panther-man.

This is on Netflix Instant as the "Director's Cut" and our last look at Maria in the boat is the "haggard but normal" version. No idea what the difference is between this one and the theatrical cut though, but I too was hoping for a more pronounced ending that showed how she was undeniably reverting back to her true animal form.

😒