Poor Edits

This film in the state shown on TCM looks like it was re-edited after completion, or scenes that were once in it were dropped or rearranged. I was wondering if anyone could shed light on the way the film looks choppy. For instance, in the beginning there is an emphasis placed on "HEADLINES!" in the titles, leading the audience into expecting a series of newspaper headlines shown on screen, and this leads to absolutely nothing to do with newspapers or headlines. However, later in the film there are many headlines shown. It just looks like they (the studio??) took a pair of scissors and started tearing the film apart, and didn't care how unprofessional it looked.