- The uncut version of 107 minutes length has dialogue with full Scottish accents, while the more common originally released version of 89 minutes, while still making use of Scotch accents, has long stretches of redubbed, unaccented dialogue.
- The edited version had a prologue spoken by Orson Welles before any lines of William Shakespeare's play were even uttered. In the prologue, Welles explains that the witches are "agents of hell...plotting against Christian law and order" and that "here on the blasted heath", the spell is put upon Macbeth. Most books which discuss the Welles film mention Welles's narration, apparently completely unaware that it does not appear at all in the complete, restored version of the film.
- The scene in England (in which the Holy Father suddenly appears, and informs Macduff and Malcolm of what has happened during their self-imposed exile) was originally shown with no background music, and is presented this way in the restored full-length version on video. In the edited 89-minute version, background music was added at a climactic moment, presumably to add more emotion to the scene.
- The 89-minute version, recut by studio executives, and redubbed by Orson Welles and the other actors to cut down on the Scottish accents, also omitted some of the play's most famous lines, e.g. "Double, double, toil and trouble", the whole second half of the "If it were done when 'tis done" speech, the line "I have supp'd full with horrors", some of the "Is this a dagger which I see before me" speech, as well as the entire conversation between Macbeth and the murderers in which he persuades them to kill Banquo.
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