"Carnival of Souls" had its world premiere at the Main Street Theatre in Lawrence, Kansas, in September 1962. While the US release of "Carnival of Souls" failed to include a copyright on the prints, automatically placing them in the public domain, the foreign release marketed by Walter Manley did contain a copyright card and was protected for overseas sales. The 35 mm theatrical prints were cut by Herz-Lion to 78 minutes which trimmed the camera original. However, the 16 mm television copies were printed complete and individually cut by each station to fit their time slot, which is why they vary in length.